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Rep. Brian Baird’s (D-Wash.) recent conversion on the Iraq war is beginning to affect more than the national dialogue. On Wednesday, liberal group MoveOn.org announced an ad campaign against the congressman in his own district. Baird recently returned from a trip to Iraq and reversed his position on a withdrawal timetable, citing military progress in the four-year-old war. MoveOn is calling the move a “flip-flop” and says it goes against the views of his constituents. The ad does not make specific reference to Baird’s conversion. Instead, it features a soldier who served in Iraq talking about the amount of resistance troops encountered and at the end asks viewers to tell Baird to bring the troops home. The soldier in the ad served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and describes a scene from that time, long before the current troop increase that Baird has cited as the reason for military progress. Baird voted against the war in 2003 and had opposed it until last month. Republicans have been quick to key on his remarks as evidence of progress in Iraq. MoveOn disagrees, calling the war “unwinnable.” “So far this has been one of the bloodiest summers in Iraq, and voters don’t want to continue down a failed path,” said MoveOn campaigner Nita Chaudhary. “They want representatives who will stand up to President Bush’s reckless policy and bring our troops home.” Baird has represented a swing district in southwest Washington since 1998 but has not seen strong challenges in recent years. He has taken more than 60 percent of the vote in each of the last three elections. The ad buy is $20,000 in a cheap Vancouver market, and Chaudhary said it might be extended. |
