Hawk Hunting

Three Congressional Democrats who have been most supportive of the Bush administration's war in Iraq will have to explain their hawkish stances, now that challengers from their Southern California districts have filed to oppose them in the June 6 primary election.

Hoping to force a referendum on the war and its Democratic co-sponsors in the House of Representatives are educator Marci Winograd, filing against incumbent Jane Harman in the 36th District, which includes the beach cities from Venice to San Pedro; former union staffer Bob McCloskey, confronting Adam Schiff in the 29th (Pasadena-Glendale-Burbank-Alhambra); and teacher Charles Coleman Jr., opposing Howard Berman in the East San Fernando Valley's 28th.

Berman and Schiff, both members of the House International Affairs Committee, along with Harman, ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, all marched in lockstep with Bush at the war's outset, echoing his claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in committee and on the House floor. As public opinion has soured, Schiff and Harman stopped cheerleading and have tried over the past year to put some distance between themselves and Bush's policy - while Berman (a strong Bush critic on many domestic issues) has never wavered from a "stay the course" position despite his complaints that he was misled on the presence of WMD.

"Mr. Schiff has continued to support the war. The last letter I got from him sounded like something from the Bush administration," McCloskey said recently. Also in the race in the 29th are former Pasadena Mayor Bill Paparian, a onetime Republican running for the Greens; Peace and Freedom candidate Lynda Llamas; Republican contender Bill Bodell; and Libertarian Jim Keller. Even if McCloskey is eliminated in June, Paparian and Llamas have committed to keep the antiwar critique ringing through November.

Winograd, a teaching coach and literacy expert who worked at many schools in the district, promoted an antiwar resolution at last year's state Democratic convention and organized against depleted uranium weapons. She also helped launch the California Election Protection network for safe voting equipment. She was hoping to see another candidate step up but, watching Harman's TV comments on Bush's federal wiretapping law (FISA) violations - Harman had known of them for a year and condemned The New York Times for spilling the news of the wiretaps to the nation - Winograd was so outraged, "I told my husband I guess it's got to be me."

Though the war will be the centerpiece of their campaigns, said Winograd and McCloskey, they have other bones to pick with the incumbents, including their support of the USA Patriot Act. Schiff was a co-author but has had second thoughts about a few extreme provisions; he opposed renewal last July but moved in favor of renewal again by December. His only companion among the area's Democrats was Harman, who has backed the act, secret warrants and all, throughout.

Harman and Schiff rank neck-and-neck as the most pro-Bush House Democrats in Southern California, according to Congressional Quarterly ratings, voting with the administration about 25 percent of the time. The two broke with all other area Democrats by opposing the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget, which would have cut anti-ballistic missile funding, raised health and education spending, and closed tax loopholes. Harman was the sole SoCal Democrat to join with Republicans in passing Bush's class action bill and the credit card company's version of "bankruptcy reform," issues Winograd intends to remind voters about.

The Winograd and McCloskey campaigns, though hastily assembled in February, are taking root quickly. Winograd has collected endorsements from a peace movement who's-who, including author Gore Vidal, Vietnam veteran and Born on the Fourth of July author Ron Kovic, Ed and Cindy Asner, Code Pink's Jodie Evans, and leaders of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Gold Star Families. McCloskey boasts the backing of veteran activist Tom Hayden and Rev. Jim Lawson, non-violence pioneer and mentor to Martin Luther King. Winograd has a veteran of City Councilman Bill Rosendahl's campaign spearheading her effort and already has polling underway and fundraising events planned. McCloskey has hired an experienced consultant and has scheduled March campaign events.

In a surprising break with labor's usual loyalty to incumbent Democrats, the union representing much of the Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers Los Angeles, rescinded their embrace of Schiff and Harman on March 1 and will reopen the endorsement process to consider the challengers. Officers of several local Democratic clubs have also climbed aboard both campaigns.

Among the three incumbents, Howard Berman is the least prone to regrets, rethinking, or retreat from his original hawkishness. It's ironic then that he will probably face the weakest challenge. A prominent Valley rabbi considered entering the race but found Berman's reservoir of support broad even among those who deeply disagreed with his Iraq views. That left the otherwise liberal congressman facing Charles Coleman, a soft-spoken juvenile-hall teacher who ran in 2004, garnering 18 percent to Berman's 82 percent. Coleman intends to contribute $20,000 seed money to the campaign, but has no plans to hire a fund-raiser. A self-effacing type who gives out fliers if you ask for one, he seems wedded to a low-key operation: The campaign manager is Coleman's wife, who has a full-time job. In short, there's no urgency for Berman to start planning consulting gigs or retirement hobbies.

McCloskey, a 55-year-old part-time carpenter and former staffer for the Service Employees International Union who organized against HMO service cuts to pregnant women, describes America's military-industrial complex as "a corrupt system."

But it's Harman, not Schiff, who could best be characterized as the darling of the defense industry. During the long pre-invasion war debate, Harman solicited the opinion of military contractors, including a Boeing vice-president (who told her war would calm "uncertainty" on Wall Street). Harman's top-10 contributors for 2004 were headed by Boeing and Northrop Grumman and included Raytheon, K&F Industries (whose subsidiary provides fuel tanks to the air force), National Technical Systems (which provides range testing for new weapons), and Scientific Applications International, which just last month was awarded a four-year contract for "semi-automated force" applications.

Schiff's support for the war, however, is not easy to tie to his contributors' interests. His financial base is a business-labor blend with major money from construction unions and trial lawyers as well as Disney, Time Warner, and the Realtors lobby. However, McCloskey points out, Schiff's No. 1 donor is Pasadena-based Parsons Corporation, which copped a $500 million contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority to rebuild Iraqi schools and clinics, and a $900 million contract in 2004 with the U.S. Army Engineers for "security and justice" infrastructure, building police and fire stations and prisons.

Backpedaling toward her constituents' views, Harman called in a November article for the administration to lay out a detailed exit strategy "that clarifies America's political and strategic intentions" and issued a five-point critique of its Iraq policy. She called on Bush to make clear that America has no plans for permanent bases in Iraq, nor any designs on its oil fields or revenues. Bush should redouble efforts to find partners for U.S. security and reconstruction efforts, she added, opening up contracts to foreign companies as an incentive. He was also urged to send a high-level envoy to smooth out Shia-Sunni and Arab-Kurd conflicts, she said, in order to preserve a viable federal state. Finally, she called for "metrics" in Iraqi military self-sufficiency, which would trigger "drawdowns" in U.S. troops.

While all these measures would make an exit easier, it's not clear if they constitute a strategy or merely a wish-list. Harman offers no answers for a scenario in which Iraqi forces remain weak or - as seems likely as Sunni-Shia tensions escalate - become even less effective at keeping the peace.

Winograd agrees on opposing permanent bases and keeping our hands off Iraqi oil - positions she said Harman adopted only after progressives lobbied her night and day. Moreover, she adds, Harman's faith in training enough Iraqi military units is misguided. Iraqi soldiers standing next to American soldiers are viewed as collaborators and make themselves targets, says Winograd. "If we really want to support a peaceful resolution in Iraq, then we need to exit sooner, rather than later," she adds. "Only when the U.S. military is out of Iraq, will Iraqis concentrate on the real enemy - the forces of violence."