The Nation - Candidates' distinctions blur on Iraq - Democratic presidential rivals' stances on the war are increasingly similar despite attempts to draw differences.
WASHINGTON — It was 4:12 a.m. Wednesday when Hillary Rodham Clinton finally got her chance to address the Senate in support of a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. Barack Obama snagged less time to speak, but at least his slot around 10 a.m. was in the daylight hours. After that, the usually loquacious Joseph R. Biden Jr. had just a minute to speak.
The senators who are also trying to win the Democratic presidential nomination took a detour from the campaign trail to join the Senate's all-night debate on Iraq, voting in support of the unsuccessful proposal to force President Bush to remove combat troops by April 30, 2008.
But what looked like unity on the Senate floor masked a scramble on the campaign trail, where the candidates are trying to harness anger among the party's base over the war.
Obama (D-Ill.) is increasingly trying to sharpen his antiwar credentials by reminding voters that Clinton (D-N.Y.) initially backed the 2002 U.S. invasion, whereas Obama, then a state senator, opposed it. Biden (D-Del.) is touting a plan for dividing Iraq into three aligned regions.
Within the Senate chamber, however, the effort by Democrats to present a unified opposition to Bush's Iraq policy has also had the effect of blurring distinctions among the party's presidential candidates. That could end up benefiting Clinton, who has tried to negate criticism of her 2002 vote by arguing that differences among the Democratic candidates are not that great today.
That was evident during the all-nighter on the troop withdrawal amendment.
The candidates said similar things, and in the end those three joined the other Democratic presidential hopeful in the Senate, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, in voting to end the GOP filibuster. The effort failed in a 52-47 vote, short of the 60 needed to cut off debate under Senate rules.
That convergence among the Democratic presidential candidates was a far cry from just a few months ago, when Clinton opposed a withdrawal deadline and was heckled by party activists for it.
Although she never bowed to activists' demands that she apologize for her 2002 vote, she has steadily softened her position in other ways in recent months. She proposed putting a cap on the number of troops in Iraq, called for a vote to reverse the 2002 war authorization and voted against a war funding bill because it did not call for a troop withdrawal.
