> Will they continue to exercise this
> self-restraint if the US continues to pour blood and treasure into Iraq
> under a Kerry administration? Somehow I doubt it, anymore than they
> deferred
> to LBJ and Humphrey over Vietnam after Goldwater was out of the way.
Yes, except that the real escalation happened after Johnson beat Goldwater. A lot of the anger against Johnson was due to the fact that many people thought he was the "peace candidate," but he proceeded to go to war. Hell, I voted for Johnson too (the first vote in a presidential campaign for me), and was soon hating his guts (the outsides of which, at least, he showed to the nation in a famous photograph).
But I agree that the same kind of thing could well happen with Kerry. I actually don't think that the Iraq issue is the main reason, or even a very important one, for voting for Kerry vs. Bush, because I agree with those who say Kerry would follow pretty much the same course in Iraq as Bush would. Bush is now trying to "internationalize" Iraq, just as Kerry wants, and Kerry is just as determined as Bush not to let the U.S. "look bad" by "cutting and running" (what in heaven's name do these guys think is making the U.S. "look bad" to the rest of the world now??!!).
But as long as the U.S. troops' casualty rate is about what it is now, I don't see a wave of anger building up against a Pres. Kerry the way it did against Johnson. And as you say, the draft made a huge difference. You will notice that the K-ster is very carefully not calling for a draft now, despite all of the "strong, stronger, strongest" blather.
What should get people angrier about Kerry would be economic issues. If he is elected, he should be pressured heavily to support better labor laws, the minimum wage, for sure -- a reasonable national health plan. I don't see any anger building in the population on those issues -- people seem to be quite relaxed about being economically screwed six ways from Sunday. Maybe they're just shell-shocked by the Bush onslaught on the workers.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax