CBC (Henry Champ): When Democrats go to war

[tuvor]

If you stand in the hallway of the main Capitol building this week, just outside room H232, you will see every House Democrat — big and small, powerful or puny — each adjusting a tie or brushing back an errant forelock before entering.

H232 is Speaker Nancy Pelosi's suite of offices and guess what? She's having the same problem her Republican counterpart had for the past decade or so: How to control the competing wings of a party in power.

That schism is especially important this week because the issue is the vote on what is essentially the Democratic war plan. On the table is the $105-billion spending request from the White House for the conflict in Iraq, and the Democrats want to attach benchmarks to this, which if not met would set the timetable for U.S. withdrawal.

The horse-trading in H232 is ferocious. Pelosi and her leadership team are starting out with about 180 votes from the centre of the party. They need a minimum of 218 by week's end and the remaining votes are coming slowly and with a price.

(snip)

The Speaker's vote counters indicate the 218 total is doable but it's going to take considerable massaging of the party's extremes, and that's why H232 is going to be a very busy crossroads this week.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/champblog/2007/03/when_democrats_go_to_war.html