Today the Democrats are releasing their national security plan. The plan is to be released at noon, however advanced copies have gone out to some in the press.

The plan offers a change of course in current policy and putting a greater attention on capturing Osama:

Eyeing House and Senate elections this fall, Democrats are stepping up their effort to cut into the public perception that Republicans are stronger on national security.

Congressional Democrats vow to provide U.S. agents with the resources to hunt down Osama bin Laden and ensure a “responsible redeployment of U.S. forces” from Iraq in 2006 in a national security policy statement House and Senate Democratic leaders were announcing Wednesday.

“We need a new direction on national security, and leaders with policies that are tough and smart. That is what Democrats offer,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday.

His counterpart in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said Democrats were providing a fresh strategy — “one that is strong and smart, which understands the challenges America faces in a post 9/11 world, and one that demonstrates that Democrats are the party of real national security.”

Republicans criticized the statement as an election-year stunt.

Amazingly the Republicans are calling this an “election-year stunt”. I suppose the Republicans feel we should keep doing the same thing we have been for the past 6 years. Of course the Democrats and a vast majority of Americans know that the current plan is severely failing. In Iraq, the Republicans want to “do more of the same”. In regards to Osama, they want to do “more of the same”. Well here is a problem – Iraq is a mess and Osama is still making threats.

In recent polls, the war on terror and Iraq have been the only field in which Republicans hold a lead over Democrats. That lead has been shrinking however. Now that the Democrats are showing a tougher and more well thought-out plan for dealing with the problems, those poll demographics could shift in favor of the left. This will help make the mid-term elections even more interesting and more at stake.