Congress's Out of Iraq sisterhood.

Last January, three Californians rode into town to rule the new Democratic majority. They had a name--the "Triad"--one shared with the sinister Chinese secret societies, "triads," that became the scourge of Hong Kong by dominating the industries of DVD piracy and contract murder. They had a following--nearly 80 foot-soldiers loyal to their cause. They even had a sign, flashed in moments of solidarity by the girl gang's three members-- Representatives Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, and Barbara Lee. Recently, Woolsey demonstrated it for me after I accidentally referred to the women as the "trio. " "Triad," she corrected gravely, pressing her index fingers and thumbs together to create a triangle.The Triad is not the first specially named guerrilla unit to form on the Hill. Past congressional generations have produced "Rummy's Raiders," the "Newtoids," and "The Gang of 14." (None of these other groups is known to have had their own sign.) But, more than any other, it has, over a short period of time, experienced a reversal of fortune. After the Democrats swept into Congress last year with a mandate to radically alter our Iraq policy, the members of the staunchly antiwar Triad became captains of the effort. They expanded their Out of Iraq Caucus, invited celebrities like Susan Sarandon to appear with them at press conferences, and attracted throngs of reporters when they stepped off the House floor. During negotiations over the Iraq spending supplemental, they stared down Speaker Nancy Pelosi herself, threatening to defect with a core 30-member Out of Iraq bloc if the leadership wasn't strong enough on its antiwar position. "We are quite a force to be reckoned with," Woolsey boasted at the time. But, after the early spring, growth in the Out of Iraq Caucus's membership has "been stuck," says Waters. Moderates became more powerful, and Pelosi and the leadership began to design Iraq initiatives with their needs in mind, not the Triad's. By the summer, there still had been no glimmer of a serious change in our Iraq policy. The Triad had lost its turf. Some radically new techniques were in order. "We realized our voices had to be bigger," says Woolsey. "We knew we needed to go beyond the Congress." They decided to take their D.C. posse out to the people. The Triad found the people at, among other places, the Drake Diner, a 1950's- style black-and-chrome restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa. On Saturday, June 23, the women breakfasted there with local Democrats, the first of a series of appearances they are making in the early primary states--Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire. Even at first glance, the three stood out: Waters, with her '60s- movie-star glasses; Lee, with her short, spiky hair; and the white-haired Woolsey, who sports a distinctive radical-granny look. At the breakfast, they pulled out all the stops, launching into a blistering critique of the Democrats who kept voting to fund the war. "They were pretty strident. They were forceful, " says Peggy Huppert, chair of Iowans for Sensible Priorities, the group that helped bring the Triad to the state. "They said, 'This is unacceptable, and you need to hold [these Democrats'] feet to the fire.'" Some of the Democrats under attack were sitting right there. Joe Biden's local manager, Danny O'Brien, got publicly schooled when he tried to defend Biden's votes. "Maxine wasn't having any of it," recalls Huppert. "She said, 'Yeah, right. Well, you can say that to justify it. You're not going to convince me.'" This no-bullshit air is typical Waters. Arriving in Congress from Los Angeles in 1991, she immediately made a name for herself by storming her way into a White House meeting on the L.A. riots to which she had not been invited. Lynn Woolsey, then a city council member in Sonoma County, fell in love. "When I was running [for Congress] in 1992, people would ask, 'Why are you running?' And I'd say, 'Because Maxine Waters needs me,'" she remembers. Lee, who came to Washington in 1999, won extra respect from Waters and Woolsey by casting the sole House vote against Bush's invasion of Afghanistan. Though the women have assumed distinct roles within their band-- Waters, according to Woolsey, is the "message and the spirit. ... Barbara is quieter, the statesman"; and Woolsey, says Waters, is "less patient"--a shared worldview underpins their intense bond. The Triad creed, according to Waters, is this: "We truly believe that you cannot manage the differences of nations with war. .. . We believe that the time certainly has come ... [to] disarm the world." But the first step, disarming moderate opponents in Washington, has proved increasingly tough. This month, Pelosi sent an Iraq resolution the Triad considered GOP appeasement--Representative Neil Abercrombie's non-binding request for withdrawal plans--to the floor for a vote. The group of liberals the women had marshaled to combat the spring's supplemental defiantly voted against Abercrombie. But, unlike during the supplemental negotiations, nobody really seemed to notice, or care. The measure passed handily with Republican help. The Triad women are unwilling to succumb to the prevailing Democratic attitude of resignation. That's why they've headed out into the primary states to fire people up and draw on the energy of the presidential campaigns. They mounted four events in one day during their June Iowa trip; an August trip to Nevada featured a Service Employees International Union rally. And they have an upcoming visit scheduled to New Hampshire. "[People] are not showing up [to protests] yet in the way you think of the Vietnam era," says Waters. "It's going to take street heat [to end the war]. I want people to roll out!" Around 125 Democrats rolled out for the Triad's rally at a black church in Waterloo, Iowa, a few hours after the Drake Diner breakfast. The Faith Temple Baptist Church gospel choir introduced the California representatives with a rendition of "Celebrate!" that rang to the ceiling. At home in the hopped-up crowd, the Triad railed on Bush and received standing ovations and shouts of "Amen!" and "You say it, girl!" "It was almost, to me, as if the whole rest of the day had been warming up for the Waterloo event," says Huppert. Chris Schwartz, also of Iowans for Sensible Priorities, got goosebumps. Waters "was really on fire," he remembers, "and ready to drag people into the streets kicking and screaming to take action." But do the people want to be dragged into the streets kicking and screaming? Because of their abundance of outrage over the war, the Triad's efforts can have an alienating, kamikaze quality. The hot language and Bush-bashing worked at the church in Waterloo, but not so well in Des Moines, where a more disappointing rally earlier in the day turned out only about 50 staid Iowans and no press. Some Democrats believe that, with its level of outrage, the Triad has sacrificed power in Congress. In September, Woolsey was quoted telling activists that they should consider "go[ing] after the Democrats" who are insufficiently pious on Iraq. The fallout from what sounded like an incitement to Robespierre moderate Democrats still hasn't entirely settled. "It was a blip [in the press], but around here people were really, really irritated," an aide to an Out of Iraq Caucus member says. The suggestion was not only impolitic, it was strategically deaf. Progressives in Congress desperate to end the Iraq war live inside an unsolvable math problem, where nobody can muster the simple numbers to override filibusters or vetoes. The obvious solution to this unforgiving political calculus is to get more Democrats of any kind in Congress in 2008, not to pick off incumbents. But you have to give them credit: Unlike many other downhearted antiwar Democrats, at least the three women are trying. In addition to the states they've already visited and will visit, Waters is trying to convince the other two to try their luck in South Carolina. "I think we can have a great impact in South Carolina," she says, smiling mischievously. The gang rides on. But, outside their familiar territory, they run the risk of becoming something like Buffalo Bill Cody became when he took his Wild West Shows to genteel Boston: more performance than persuasion.