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There's been a bit more in the Beltway press about the legendary "conservative Democrats" or "Democrats in red districts" who are allegedly afraid that — in a nation where 70% of Americans hate Bush and his war — daring to oppose Bush in any meaningful way (such as by backing Murtha's bill to make sure the troops are brought home and the damage done by Bush to their readiness is remedied) will doom them in the polls come 2008.

Now, assuming this is true — and since the WP article cited doesn't name names, it makes me wonder how much of this was invented in an attempt to play "let's you and him fight"  — we have some options.

Education.  Some reps oppose the war or are at least willing to listen to reason on it, but are understandably afraid of how the GOP/Media Complex will spin their efforts to end it.  We can let them know that we have their back, and that we can counter media spin.  We just stripped Ann Coulter of a bunch of her advertisers, and with only a few days of concerted effort ; if we can do that, we can work to counter the GOP/Media's efforts on this.  Groups like the Rapid Response Network, MoveOn.org and others are useful for this.

We can also point out that their Republican counterparts are scared to death of even debating the war, much less voting on it.   This was reinforced again by William Kristol in his latest Time.com piece, where he says the following: "Mitch McConnell's performance as Senate Republican leader has also–for the first time in a long while–given Republicans a congressional leader worth rooting for as he outmaneuvers the Democrats in their efforts to put Congress on record against Bush's Iraq policy."  Kristol's tacitly admitted that the Republicans fear being put on record on Iraq as they fear nothing else.  That should tell you something.

But if this doesn't work — say, if because your rep is a Blue Dog wedded to the corporatist concept of turning the Democrats into GOP Lite — then the best option (especially if the congressional district is bluish anyway) is to haul out the Big Gun:

Primary Challengers.  Lieberman aside, we generally went easy on most Democrats last year because the goal at the time was to evict the GOP from its long-held leadership of Congress.  And the Democratic hold on the Senate is still pretty fragile and narrow.  But that doesn't mean that we can't remind these folks why we elected them in the first place.

Let's put together a list of Wary Waverers, ranking them in order of reachability and noting which are in districts that are likely to stay blue or to turn red should they lose a primary challenge.  Then we can decide how best to target our efforts — and find strong candidates for strong runs.  (All the money in the world won't help you if your candidate is a stinker.)  Start naming names, districts, and good candidates to run (if you know of any).  If we get started now, I think we can do pretty well.

Who knows — we might find the next Tim Walz or Jon Tester or John Yarmuth waiting in the wings.  And even if the challenge "fails", most pols aren't as pigheaded as Lieberman — who is a special case in every meaning of the word.  For one thing, Lieberman's a Senator, has a huge war chest, and doesn't have to run again for six years.  Congresscritters come up for electoral target practice every two years.  They know full well that while they might survive one primary challenge, they might not survive a second.

So whaddya say?  Let' get crackin'!

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