I wish all the candidates would unite behind this effort.  Especially after not just voting for the War but co-sponsoring it, Edwards should use all his efforts to incite his supporters to action, not simply anger.

Just look at the re-vote effort and understand the political implications of a marginalized presidency and you'll know Obama isn't the only one who has a 'plan'.

To pressure Republicans you discredit their President. Trying to pressure them indivually won't work nearly as well as a marginalized President.

This is happening naturally already but an effort to accelerate the process could be very effective. All parties on our side are headed to the same goal. It's a question of tactics.

Remember...Nixon didn't leave until his own party told him to get out before he destroyed them all.

The first meeting of this sort happened this week at the WH with REPUBLICANS telling their President that they couldn't keep up the support if he didn't budge. (Which he won't in any significant way.)

He is daily becoming more marginalized from his own party. That's how you get the votes in the House and Senate on a veto-proof resolution.

i have to say that your passion is contagious. please keep it up!

I agree totally.  Bush wants to stay in iraq and pass it off to the next president.  Since he is in full lame  duck he doesn't have to do anything.  And on Political Wire I read a Cheney quote that said they did not get elected to care about the republican party.  That is where they stand.  They will let the republicans sink on their own.  They feel they owe no one.
You have to put the pressure on getting the votes needed and the one signature thing became Obama's rally cry.

that was fun.  I wrote a note to my 2 senators to tell them to back the pressure on the republicans.  Only problem is that my senators are Dick Durbin and Barack Obama.  But, I could not resist doing the message thing and said I back the pressure on the republicans - then added a lol.  I also said That the people of Illinois are proud of both him and Durbin.

Thanks for posting this. I love it.

I like this plan a lot, it's similar to John Kerry's "Roadblock Republicans" plan, good move. If Obama would ask his fan base to making some real noise by encouraging them to give to ActBlue general fund pages against those 16 Senators, then I'd be impressed.

Gee Jerome, why don't you go and blog or write to the campaign.  Go on the site and make the suggestion.  Maybe they are not aware of it or did not think about it.  Lots going on these days for them.

It's potentially a good strategy to get some removed from office in 2008, but I doubt any of them (aside from perhaps Coleman, Collins, and Sununu) could be persuaded to change their minds, so I doubt it's a real strategy to end the war before then.  Like Jerome said, this is as much about taking on the Republicans in elections as getting them to vote with us.
If Obama's "bipartisanship" means asking them to stand with us where we have big public support, like on this issue, or have to face our wrath at the ballot box, I'm all for it.

Going after president bush is better.

1.  It reinforces the frame that the change we need is in the whitehouse.   Obama's effort may help pick up extra seats in the Senate.

2.  The President is weak right now and the weaker he gets, the harder it is for Republican members in congress to stick with him.  i.e., this is an effective way of dividing the opposition so that we can split and pick up votes.  
   
3.  Keeping the heat on Bush allows adds pressure on the Democrats to stay strong, united and oppose the president.   Our biggest risk is now is dems being split and peeling off to cut some deal - led by the leadership.

When people wanted substance from him he offered talking points.  

... is aimed squarely at recalcitrant Congressmen and Senators ... instead of giving them the high ground in behind the scenes negotiation, put them on the record as voting against the withdrawal timetable when it comes up for the vote, and when it comes up for the veto override ... then put them on the record again in another two weeks, and again, and again, and again.

They will start to crack.

Isn't it fundamentally incorrect to say that you need to find just 16 votes?  You need both the Senate and the House at 2/3rds to override a veto.  Why doesn't Obama mention the 72 extra votes in the House that are needed? There needs to be an 88 votes website.  

Of course "We're just 88 votes away from ending the war" doesn't have a very nice ring to it.

This seems like a smart move, although if Edwards or Obama could bring themselves to endorse the plan of the other as a complimentary addition to their own, it'd be be a great way of establishing themselves as movement candidates rather than just personality candidates.

It's also notable that Iowa, NH and SC are amongst the 20 states he's targetting with this. One wonders if this will dovetail into attempting to gain votes there.

I think we need

• pressure on the White House,
  
• pressure on Democratic congresscritters to stand up against Bushco, and
  
• focus on republicans to either own this travesty and all the problems that go with it or stand with the American public.

It's going to take all three to change the course of this military action plus getting the American people to be public and vocal in their opposition.

interesting approach by Obama on this. THe key phrase from the site page is this: "to carry out the will of the American people... to end the war". Dems need to get on TV and repeat this ad infinitum.