I'm at the Take Back America conference, where ten congressional candidates are announcing "A Responsible Plan To End The War In Iraq" (details here). Anytime around 5:30pm, you can watch the announcement streamed live here:

This initiative is important because it offers a concrete plan to leave Iraq, and creates a path politically to make it happen. It aims to achieve an end to the Iraq war in a safe and responsible manner by setting a firm deadline for troop drawdown, removing all residual troops, and engaging the surrounding nations diplomatically to ensure Iraq's long-term stability. It also restores transparency and our constitutional checks and balances so that a similar debacle will never happen again.

Politically, the plan will be effective because it creates political momentum and challenges the fundamental framework that the media uses when discussing the war. Congressional candidates who support this plan will be rewarded by activists (volunteers/fundraising), which is an incentive to sign on. If the initiative is defeated or vetoed now, we can take that to voters as an argument for why we need change in Congress. Most importantly, when these challengers get elected in November 2008, it offers a clear mandate to enact the plan in 2009.

I'd encourage our Congressional challengers to sign on to this plan. More info will be available at ResponsiblePlan.com. I'll also be blogging more about this in the context of Michigan politics in a few days.