WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON -- When Congress gives President Barack Obama more funds later this month for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, only one Maryland lawmaker is expected to dissent: Democratic Rep. Donna F. Edwards.
Edwards believes the president is taking the U.S. in the wrong direction in Afghanistan. She argues that Obama has no plan for winning and no strategy for getting out.
Congress "failed" its responsibility to challenge President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq, Edwards said in an interview. "And we can't make that mistake with President Obama."
After less than a year in the job, the first black woman elected to Congress from Maryland has stamped herself as the most liberal member of the state's congressional delegation. She is also building a national following on the left.
"We see her as an emerging leader, and I think she will really be a dynamic force in the Congress," said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, which gave her a prominent place on the agenda at the liberal group's conference in Washington this week.
It's a heady ascent for the 50-year-old lawyer from Prince George's County, who had never held public office until last June. But standing up to a highly popular president from her own party - one whose margin of victory in her district was larger than any other in the state - seems right in character.
Edwards got her start in politics as a local activist, fighting plans for the $2 billion National Harbor project on the Potomac. The developer eventually agreed to her demand for residential housing at the hotel-retail complex.
The single mother of a college-age son then took on Rep. Al Wynn, her one-time boss as a Maryland state senator. Running to his left and attacking his support for the war in Iraq, she nearly upset the veteran Democrat in the 2006 primary; last year, she finished him off.
Like others on the left, Edwards is unhappy with some of Obama's early pragmatic decisions, such as withholding photos of Abu Ghraib detainee abuses (releasing them would be "part of how we reach the rest of the world," she contends) or taking a single-payer health care option off the table before congressional negotiations even started ("not helpful").
"I think at his core the president is one of us," Edwards told activists during a panel discussion at the conference. By bringing pressure from the left, liberals can "open up the political space for this president to do what his gut wants him to do anyway."
