2009 Essays

Obama + Afghanistan = Bush + Iraq = Johnson + Vietnam?

Mitchell, Lincoln A.

Barack Obama owes a great deal of his success in last year’s Democratic primaries to being the only major candidate consistently in opposition to the Iraq war. This differentiated him from the other two major candidates, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom had initially supported the war. In 2008, opposition to the Iraq war became necessary to win the support of at least some of the Democratic Party’s liberal anti-war base; without as much, the nomination would have been almost impossible to win.