I can understand the reaction of many conservatives and GOP activists to the decision by 17 House members and 7 Senators to oppose the surge in Iraq. When the leader of your party and your President is in trouble, your first instinct should be to swallow your disagreements and support him. Loyalty to party and its leader should outweigh many concerns.

Indeed, there were many GOP House and Senate members who have grave misgivings about the President’s plan but supported it anyway. Why couldn’t that handful of lawmakers have seen their way clear to standing with the President when he needed them the most?

Mark Tapscott writes about the remarkable growth of The Victory Caucus, a week old internet phenomena that has as its mission:

• Deliver the perspectives and news on the war effort which the mainstream media neglects to help the American public understand the nature of our conflict and its true progress.

• Provide tools and infrastructure to help citizens who are committed to victory organize into a recognized and influential caucus.

• Identify opportunities for the caucus to act and exert influence on America’s leaders and to directly aid and support the men and women of our military.

Tapscott thinks that VC may eventually have the power to impact elections:

Victory Caucus represents something new – an Internet-based campaign wild card with the power to shape the outcome of an election. These campaign wild cards give voice to a decisive segment of the electorate whose concerns are being ignored and/or attacked in and by the major party candidates and the mainstream media.

Unlike the pre-Internet era that saw the Perot movement slip away, I believe it is now becoming increasingly possible with the Internet to not merely conserve the energy and focus of an independent electoral movement but to grow it over time, maintain its focus and even expand its internal structure and coherence.

That may be, but much hard, slogging work lies ahead for VC to have that kind of an impact. And events themselves might overtake the VC’s strong support for the war and the troops engaged in combat. The Democrat’s bleed the troops strategy resonates within their caucus because it gives the party an opportunity to stop the war while not being blamed for abandoning the troops. As cynical a ploy that Murtha’s strategy represents, it nevertheless has a real chance of succeeding – with or without a united Republican party.

And what would happen in 6 months if the surge fails and, more importantly, the Maliki government fails to make the political changes necessary to begin to unite all the factions in Iraq in order to begin the process of national reconciliation? Even the President has indicated that unless there is progress by the Iraqi government in this area, he would re-evaluate our commitment in Iraq. At that point, I would guess VC would lose some momentum if not some cohesion.

But what makes VC’s agenda so problematic is their stated goal of enforcing party discipline when it comes to votes on the war. Hugh Hewitt:

The growth of the Victory Caucus represents the combination of the internet skills of NZ Bear and the lassitude of Beltway Republicans. If the GOP is awake it will quickly begin recruiting and publicizing the candidates with appeal to the sort of voter represented by the Victory Caucus. They will also announce to the White Flag Republicans that they have made their choice, and they cannot expect the party to order shields up.

The voters involved in the VC want the Republican Party to act as though it believes in the mission in Iraq by identifying new faces and new voices with military experience to challenge the 2006 Democrats in red districts. The opportunity exists to channel the tremendous energy unleashed by the “slow bleed” Democrats, as Mark Steyn calls them. But the GOP’s Comngressional leadership needs to wake up to the fact that the activists are amazed at their inaction and defensiveness.

I fully support the pledge I signed that would deny party funds to those who vote against the surge (and support other measures by the Democrats to undercut our efforts in Iraq). But recruiting primary candidates to run against those who for reasons of conscience (or personal political calculation) choose not to support the President?

With the nonsensical dance of nonbinding resolutions in the House and Senate over (for now), it is time to focus on more productive activities. Namely: looking forward to 2008, and beginning the task of idenitfying opportunities for victory-oriented candidates to unseat White Flag incumbents.

There is work to be done. First, we need to research the White Flag incumbents we beileve might be beatable. Our starting list should be as follows:

Any White Flag Republican, defined as one of the 17 Representatives who voted for the House resolution, or one of the seven Senators who voted for cloture on the Senate resolution

Any Democrat in a district (or state) that was won by President Bush in both 2000 and 2004. This indicates that the seat may be vulnerable to a (victory-oriented) Republican challenger.

Perhaps it should follow logically that if you deny party funds to an incumbent for his apostasy, it stands to reason that a search for a primary opponent would be the next step. But I think this goes too far and I think it bad politics.

I wholeheartedly agree that the GOP should make a determined effort to recruit candidates to run against Democrats – especially from the class of ‘06 – with Iraq War experience. In fact, I would say that the dismal performance of the party leadership in recruiting quality candidates for open and contested seats was the number one reason for the GOP’s loss in the last election. The fact that the Republicans failed to defeat a single Democratic incumbent proves my point.

But why waste resources on recruiting candidates to run against Republican incumbents? I notice several House members from the “Gang of 17” who are in vulnerable districts where they received 55% of the vote or less in ‘06. Defeating an incumbent in a bruising primary in these districts would make the prospects for a general election victory less than certain and may even guarantee a Democratic pick up.

The Senate, of course, is another story. But incumbents like Coleman and Smith face uphill re-election fights as a result of their past support for the war already. The prospects for success by a primary challenger in the general election would not be good under those circumstances.

Aside from all of the political calculations, there is the question of conscience and how much a representative should be penalized for following the dictates of his inner voice. We constantly complain about spineless politicians. And then when a couple of them stand up for what they truly believe, our first move is to rev up a primary opponent for him? Either we trust the judgement and heartfelt beliefs of our politicians or we encourage them to be as calculating in their votes as we hypocritically criticize them for.

I understand the need for party discipline in this matter. But a representative of the people who either votes to reflect the position of his constituents or out of a duty to his own moral precepts and conscience shouldn’t receive a death sentence. It is not wise politically nor is it right.

UPDATE

VC is highlighted in Politico today along with the story about going after GOP reps who opposed the surge.

By the way, if you haven’t bookmarked Politico you really should. Great “inside politics” articles and some first class writing too.