85% chance that draft hysteria is part of Republican plan...

[AP]

...to encourage Democrats to focus only on war, only to pull the war issue carpet out from under Democrats' feet next October? What do you say?

I doubt that the Republicans would ever enact the draft. The last thing they need is Americans feeling like they have something real (their lives and their children's lives) at stake in our insipid foreign policy.

But I do believe that they'd pull a Nixon. After McGovern ran a campaign on being against Vietnam, Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the war and that he'd be ending the draft. That was enough for people to think that the war issue was no longer on the table, and that it'd be better not to change horses in mid-stream.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I think this AARP issue is going to keep things domestic for quite some

time.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KC21304]

6. Let me guess, your're a compassionate conservative.

[AP]

8. "Mary Jo"??? Man, you people need to get some new material.

Did you hear about Clinton's penis?

[pmbryant]

3. Agree that the GOP would never enact the draft

It would kill them politically.

After McGovern ran a campaign on being against Vietnam, Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the war and that he'd be ending the draft.

Wasn't Nixon's "secret plan" part of his 1968 campaign, not the 1972 one against McGovern? It would be kind of ridiculous to campaign on a secret plan to end the war in 1972, when he had already been in power, continuing and escalating the war, for nearly 4 years.


--Peter

[Benhurst]

4. Nixon's "secret plan" was part of the 1968 campaign against

Humphrey, not the 1972 campaign against McGovern.

As I recall, Agnew blurted out when cornered at a press conference that Nixon had a "secret plan." His remarks caused a lot of consternation back in Nixon headquarters until they realized that a "secret plan" had its advantages. It implied they had a plan to deal with Viet Nam (which they didn't) and when pressed on it, they could retreat behind "we can't tell you about it-- it's a secret."

[AP]

9. oops. My mistake.

The secret plan was to hurt Democrats in 68. That was Kissinger's little gift -- prolonging the war during the LBJ administration to preserve it as an inssue for Republicans.

What do you want to bet Republicans are grooming their own Kissingers for future Dem administrations. Actually, that's what Powel was doing during the Clinton administration -- trying to keep Yugoslavia a mess to hurt liberals in Europe and America.

[RandomUser]

5. That's an interesting observation

I don't see them going through with a draft, not considering Rove is always focused on elections. I doubt he wants to lose all those seats. And frankly, Americans will (rightly, selfishly, or both) abandon Iraq as a mess before going along with a draft.

[Jacobin]

7. Depends on who the Dem candidate is

If its someone who voted for IWR, they won't be talking about the war anyway, without sounding like an idiot, anyway.