By Terry M. Neal
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 7:53 AM

After issuing a string of confusing comments about where he stood on his vote to authorize war in Iraq, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), has finally taken a stand -- albeit a year too late for his political aspirations.

Several other high-profile Democrats, including Sens. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Diane Feinstein (Calif.), Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Christopher Dodd (Conn.) are stepping up as well and expressing regret for voting for the resolution authorizing the war in Iraq.

As a majority of the American public has reached the conclusion that they have been, as Malcolm X might have once put it, "hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, and run amok," some Democratic leaders in Washington are finding it comfortable to publicly renounce their votes in favor of the war resolution.

Yet, despite the latest Washington Post/ABC poll results indicating that 55 percent of Americans believe that the Bush administration "intentionally misled the American public," many Democrats are standing by their yea votes, including most of those mentioned as possible presidential candidates in 2008, including Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Joe Biden (Del.) and John Edwards (N.C.).

When asked by an NPR reporter last week if she regretted her vote on Iraq, Clinton, considered by some to be the early favorite for the Democratic nomination responded, "You know, I really can't talk about this on the fly. It's too important."

Bayh found himself on the firing line during a recent visit to New Hampshire. When speaking to a group of about 100 people he was asked if he'd vote to the same way today, given all that is known now. Bayh seemed to walk right up to the fine line without jumping over it.

"It turned out some of the most important information we relied upon at that time just was not accurate," Bayh told the crowd, according to the Indianapolis Star. "There were no weapons of mass destruction. The administration has proven to be terribly incompetent in the way they've carried this out. It turns out Saddam's regime was much more decrepit than we thought. Of course, we'd make different decisions based upon different facts as we know them today."

I checked with his office on Monday for clarification and was told by a press aide that Bayh "believes that he made the right decision based on the facts as they were known at the time."

That answer won't satisfy some in the party's base. At the New Hampshire event, a Democrat named Al Cantor said: "I think he needs to say, 'I blew it. I should've seen through all the lies.' There were millions of people around the world saying there was no case for war...Any presidential candidate for the Democratic Party has got to have a better answer."

Others who are prominent and visible voices in the party have refused to renounce their votes, including Sens. Joseph Lieberman (Conn.) and Chuck Schumer (N.Y.). In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Schumer blasted the administration's handling of Iraq while simultaneously defending his vote authorizing the war.

Asked by "Meet the Press" moderator Tim Russert if he regretted his vote, Schumer said: "Well, no, Tim, because my vote was seen and I still see it as a need to say we must fight a strong and active war on terror."

Much of the discussion in Washington is over the devastating impact the war in Iraq is having on the poll numbers of Bush and the GOP. Some predict this issue more than any other will lead to a narrowing or even a loss of the GOP's majority status in next year's midterm elections.

Yet, the approval rating for Democrats exceeds Bush's by only two percentage points -- meaning essentially that given the margin of error, Democrats are about as popular as the man they love to loathe.

On Iraq in particular, the party can neither paint a united face on the most divisive issue of the day, nor can its leaders explain clearly, succinctly and without parsing why they voted the way they did or where they stand now. The net result is a party full of leaders that look either craven (i.e. criticizing the president while refusing to renounce their votes for war authorization) or opportunistic (renouncing their votes only now that a majority of the public opposes the war.)

Dick Polman, a veteran political reporter for Knight-Ridder News, examined why some Democrats with presidential aspirations are sticking by their votes to authorize war.

"Their reticence might stem in part from awareness of the George Romney rule of politics: Gullibility is not a character asset for a presidential candidate," Polman wrote, relating the sad tale of the late George Romney, who was considered the front-runner in the 1968 GOP presidential race "until he tried to explain, in a radio interview during the summer of 1967, why he had renounced his previous support for the Vietnam war. The Michigan governor complained that, while visiting the hot zone, he had been duped by the brass into backing the war...Romney plummeted in the polls, and his candidacy soon evaporated; voters didn't like the idea of electing someone who admitted he was capable of being fooled. And, as many political observers argue, that's the lesson for Democrats today."

Some election observers in Washington said the same dynamic could play out similarly for Democrats seeking the presidency in 2008.

"If you're running for president, you have to balance the primary electorate, which is going to be much more dovish on the war and wants to make sure each candidate is suitably irate at the administration," said elections analyst Stuart Rothenberg. "If you're thinking about how it looks from the general election, it's problematic, because if you're a Democrat, you want to be hawkish...You have to show strength, consistency and conviction and changing [positions] would be a problem for them."

This line of thinking enrages some on the left, who argue that the party's problem is that it is too beholden to the punditry class and scared to take a stand on an issueeven when the public agrees with them as they do now on Iraq.

"Democrats can only make the case that they are better able to defend this country than Republicans by being against this war," the liberal blogger David Sirota said in response to an e-mail question.

"The real pro-national security case against the GOP is the one that says wars are sometimes necessary despite their national security risks but that the Bush administration deliberately misled America about the Iraq War's necessity, and thus unnecessarily weakened America's national security. Democrats can make this case without appearing politically opportunistic by stating the honest truth: that after 9/11 Congress and the American people believed the White House's dire warnings about Iraq, and deferred to the president at a time of national crisis."

Sirota may be right--to a point. Democrats have to find a way to differentiate from the president and the GOP by making clear that they never would have gone to war in Iraq, and by reflecting the anger that much of the public has about the false claims the administration made on the march to war. Trying to have it both ways by criticizing the president on Iraq while standing by the vote might be a safe strategy, but it's hardly a bold one.

Without a clear, concise plan for extricating the country from the mess in Iraq, and a strong, big picture foreign policy vision and homeland security vision, all the outrage won't mean a thing politically. Voters want real solutions and vision, not just criticism.