And I'll go so far as to say that if he had voted against the war, John Kerry would be president. As much as we blame the swiftboaters and the corporate media's fixation nonsense, Kerry's continual tying himself into knots about the war authorization made the whole flip-flopper meme work.

And Kerry voted for the war for the same reason Clinton did -- because they both thought that vote was necessary in order to make them viable candidates for president. I'm quite sure they both knew it was the wrong thing to do, they did it for the sake of personal ambition, and for no other reason.

So let this be a lesson to future politicians: do what is right.

A personal anecdote, so take it for what it's worth.

I have a very politically engaged friend of mine who leans Republican, but isn't registered as a Republican and ticket-splits quite a bit.

During 2004, when I was hopping mad about Bush, and couldn't understand why his reelection campaign wasn't going down in flames, he had a different take.

While he wasn't crazy about Bush, he didn't think that Kerry offered enough of a contrast on the war to convince people to dump Bush. He thought that a Howard Dean candidacy, without the self-immolation, would have been a better bet for the Democrats.

Without the war vote, probably at least 20 percent of Obama's voters would have voted for Hillary instead. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that 1 out of every 5 Obama voters was drawn to his candidacy because of his opposition to the war.

And that 20 percent would have been enough to make it a solid victory in the primaries for Hillary. Indeed, I am not sure Obama would have even run if Hillary had opposed the war.

Further, I think Hillary compounded her error by continuing to defend the war vote. RFK voted for Vietnam but still had lots of credibility in 1968 because he apologized for his vote and led demonstrations against the war. Hillary could have done that but didn't.

You mean the 2002 midterms? Same wrong vote and it didn't work even then. Should have been a clue.

Not only was HJR114 a retrospective loser for Clinton with Dems (not to mention the Kyl-Lieberman amendment), it would likely be a loser in the general because Iraq would be off the table as a viable criticism Clinton could make of McCain/Bush.

Schmitt is right about adding Clinton to the ticket and wrong about Obama. Plain-spoken and liberal - not really. Less cautious than Clinton - not if his domestic policy advisers and funding the war are any indication.

Another personal anecdote to validate Scott's point.

I live in Minnesota. As the primary vote approached I was a completely undecided voter. Hell, I'd never really had to consider who to vote for before this primary-- it's always been decided in the previous states. So as primary day approached I tried over and over to pick my candidate. I swung back and forth, forth and back, genuinely undecided. I sat down to watch the debate and hoped that it would help me make my decision.

It was an early debate; they were both congenial and likeable. Hillary scored big points with me because I think her healthcare plan is better than Obama's. Mandates will be necessary to make any plan work and the Republicans will nibble his plan to death if he waffles on mandates.

But then the Iraq vote came up. Obama said simply: You made a big mistake. Everyone knew that the vote would allow George Bush to go to war with Iraq. It was a huge error in judgment on your part.

And in that moment I knew who I would vote for. He was exactly right. I had worked hard to convince my fellow citizen and my congressperson not to go to war. I knew, I knew that vote was wrong at the time, I knew every Democrat who voted for it would regret it and I remembered that they only voted for it because of political expediency. Listen, Paul Wellstone was facing a very tough reelection battle here. He was told that he had to vote for the war if he wanted to be reelected. He and Coleman were neck and neck in the polls. Wellstone voted his conscious and voted NO. After he did he started to rise in the polls and was leading Coleman by 6 percentage points when he died.
I think you’re right on. Everyone knew it was the wrong vote. If they didn’t know in 2002, they certainly do now.

This is exactly right. And failing a vote against the war in the first place, a flat out admission that she was wrong, such as Edwards made, might have saved her.

I was an Edwards supporter at first, and he was acceptable to me because he admitted he was wrong. When he bowed out, and I had to pick between Hillary and Obama, her refusal to disavow her war vote was a big factor for me.

And then things just got uglier.

The problem with the “had she voted no she’d have won” argument is that Sen. Clinton is not the center of the universe. Christ, even Obama supporters are jumping on the “she could have won by voting no” bandwagon. It’s based on the unspoken assumption the nomination was hers to loose. While guess what – it was hers to loose and she lost. She started with every advantage available and lost. Why, because she’s an incompetent idiot? Because of AUMF? Gee, wasn’t there someone else in the race…..whatshisname…..oh yeah, Obama. Does he get ANY credit for having run a brilliant campaign? For correctly guessing time after time after time what Clinton would do next and having a counter plan in place? For grabbing hold of the caucus states with a death grip upon realizing Clinton was overlooking them? In other words, had she voted no on AUMF Obama would have run a different campaign. Who would have won that one? I don’t know and neither does anyone else here. But I do know this; Obama is one canny campaigner and I wouldn’t bet against him.