WASHINGTON – Dancing to the tune of the loonies in their party, the Democratic presidential candidates are now in danger of marching off stage left and suffering self-inflicted wounds that would doom them in a general election next year.
Barack Obama saw his poll numbers surge among Democrats after he publicly agreed to meet – during the first year of his presidency and without any preconditions – with some of the world’s most dangerous dictators.
Among those he promised face time is Iranian despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier with nuclear ambitions who makes no secret of his desire to annihilate Israel.
Then, in a prepared speech, Obama publicly threatened to invade Pakistan, a key – and already teetering – ally in the war on terror. He followed that diplo-disaster with a blanket statement – again, in public – that he would not even consider using the single greatest weapon in America’s arsenal to combat the terrorists.
We’d still be fighting the Japanese if Harry Truman – a Democrat unafraid to fight – subscribed to this fuzzy fringe foreign policy.
This cuddly posture with deadly despots may go over well with the far left, but it will be used to destroy Obama if he becomes the Democratic nominee next year. And if he’s not the nominee, the entire debate is doing damage to the Democratic Party and whoever will be its standard-bearer.
Republican operatives are already drawing up the ad showing Obama and Ahmadinejad side by side and quoting directly from Obama. It is a technique Republicans have ruthlessly perfected.
Many will scream at the unfairness of it all, but it will have devastating effect. Just ask Michael Dukakis and John Kerry.
This early campaigning has been so completely hijacked by the far left that when Hillary Rodham Clinton argued it would be unwise to run off with Ahmadinejad, she saw her poll numbers drop among Democrats in key states.
It’s just that pressure that forced her into voting against funding for the troops earlier this year – possibly the most damaging move of her career, and one that will surely haunt her next year if she becomes the nominee.
Second-tier candidate John Edwards offers no better alternative. He voted for the Iraq war – but as it became unpopular, he simply changed his mind and says he no longer supports it.
Democrats screaming to the left won’t get any less shrill over the next week. They all head to Chicago over the weekend to take part in the annual Daily Kos left-wing blogger convention, then head to L.A. next week to debate issues facing transgendered, gay and lesbian people.
churt@nypost.com