How're We Doing

Via Ezra Klein, Gallup's graphic representation of their polling data on the state of America's policy in Iraq.

It's interesting to consider how the goalposts have shifted over the years. In the summer of 2004, most Americans thought things were going poorly in Iraq, and that was certainly the general sense one got of elite beliefs as well. Today, meanwhile, despite disagreement about the "surge" I think just about everyone thinks conditions have deteriorated from where they were three years ago.

Comments

That graph makes Bush's 2004 victory just astonishing. Late September 52-46. Early December: 59-40. Who were the voters who thought things were going very badly in Bush's management of Bush's project and yet voted for him?

Posted by Jacob T. Levy | September 19, 2007 3:23 PM

Jacob T. Levy's comment puzzles me. Why is it "astonishing" that some people thought in 2004 that Iraq was going badly (could be just "moderately" badly, of course) and yet still thought that Kerry would be a worse President than Bush? Those two things don't appear to me to be inconsistent.

Posted by Al | September 19, 2007 3:33 PM

Al, that's because you're an eminently reasonable and nuanced big-picture guy. Or something.

Posted by Bill | September 19, 2007 3:38 PM

Who were the voters who thought things were going very badly in Bush's management of Bush's project and yet voted for him?

Well, they were probably the voters who thought things were merely going "badly." But, yes, this is the real measure of John Kerry's failings -- people thought the war was going badly AND that the economy was in bad shape and Bush won anyway.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | September 19, 2007 3:55 PM

Ugh - I hate graphs where the trend lines are just mirror images of one another. One is always useless information.

Posted by tde | September 19, 2007 4:02 PM

Matt, you may be right that despite the surge everyone agrees that things have deteriorated, but you can't say on the basis of the graph. It cuts off in Jan. 2007. Why Gallup hasn't continued to ask the question is a mystery. But it's probably not a mystery why the approval rating dropped so dramatically at the end there. Bush lost the midterms and a great debate broke out about how messed up our policy in Iraq was. Even Bush agreed it was messed up, so it's no surprise opinion on how well the war was going dropped.

But *after* the period in this chart, Bush changed policy and the brilliance of the surge has been trumpeted almost non-stop. Had Gallup continued this time series, I have no doubt the poll numbers would have gone up. Probably to the 35-45 range, i.e., where it's been since the fall of 2003.

And of course, that should be a warning to the Democrats. The public has been disatisfied with the war for, oh, forever. But it somehow doesn't seem to make them mad enough to really insist that anything be done. It's just one of those unpleasant things that seem to hang around, like humidity in Washington in the summer. Yeah, you don't like it but, hey, what are you going to do about it anyway?

After all, for the vast majority of Americans, it's not as if their son or daughter is going to die or as if they're having to pay more taxes.

Posted by santamonicamr | September 19, 2007 4:04 PM

What's most remarkable about this graph for me is that it starkly illustrates the fact that, apart from a couple of brief and minor upticks, most Americans have held a negative view of the war since about five months after the invasion.

And yet, here we are, four years later...

Posted by Toady | September 19, 2007 4:18 PM

Who were the voters who thought things were going very badly in Bush's management of Bush's project and yet voted for him?

Couple things:

1) My guess is many of the "things are going badly" people simply didn't turn out to vote... perhaps 40% of them turned out, while 60% of the "war is going well" side, which would produce a fairly close election.

2) Alternatively, it could be that a big chunk of those people were not blaming Bush for the war but simply thought "The US is not doing well" was a neutral descriptive statement.

Ugh - I hate graphs where the trend lines are just mirror images of one another. One is always useless information.

More annoying to me are the random intervals in the x-axis.

Posted by right | September 19, 2007 4:26 PM