Matthew Dowd: Chief Strategist for Bush and Schwarzenegger’s Reelections Says He's Lost Faith in Bush, Likes Obama, and US Should Pull Out of Iraq

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity. But, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work.”

In an article in the California Majority Report, Donald Lathbury reflects back on Dowd's response to a question in January when he appeared on a retrospective panel on the 2006 Governor's race. Lathbury reports:

When Dowd was asked about his role in enabling a continued escalation of the Iraq War during the UC Berkeley Institute for Government Studies conference on the 2006 election in California, he was visibly uncomfortable with the question, and we now see why. Dowd's disillusionment with the war follows other high-profile Republicans, including senators Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) and Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The Times article says it is unclear if the President will get Dowd's message, as the two haven't talked in a while. It would be nice if Governor Schwarzenegger, who he helped get re-elected, would think about Dowd's comments and support the call for a timetable and eventual withdrawal from Iraq.

Schwarzenegger himself has had a role to play in all of this going to Ohio in the last critical days of the 2004 election to help Bush win the critical and ever so close election in that state, and thereby re-election. To get re-elected Governor, Schwarzenegger did all he could to distance himself from the President. However, since the election he has supported the escalation in the War in Iraq.

If Matthew Dowd, who was attracted to Schwarzenegger's earlier calls for bipartisanship and a moderate path has foresaken the President, and 74% of Californians of all political stripes disapprove of the war, it is time for our Governor to call in his chits with the White House and get our soliders out of harm's way. Every time a California soldier has lost his or her life in Iraq, the Governor has issued a press release and a statement of condolence. There have been too many of these and it is time to bring our California National Guard members and soldiers home. It is time for redemption and reconciliation.

Thank you , Matthew Dowd, former member of the Democratic Party you left in 1999. Welcome back home, even if you end up leaving to do something like mission work elsewhere.