I can't help but wonder what it is about this polling data that seems to have convinced Republicans that unequivocal support for an open-ended American military presence in Iraq is a smart political strategy for November. Whatever the surge may or may not have achieved, it certainly hasn't changed the fact that a large majority of people would like to see us packed up from Iraq in a year or less.
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Polling
08 Apr 2008 02:51 pm
Comments (22)
Say what you will about conservatives or Republicans in general, I think they're a fairly principled group.
That's not to say that their principles are ethically sound! It's just that they generally do a much better job of sticking to their points than liberals do. I think that's largely because the conservatives are idealogically closer to one another than liberals are to one another; that is to say that liberals constitute a much more diverse idea set, so there's more variance. Which serves to label liberalism as inherently fleeting, but whatever.
Republicans are probably willing to lose a presidential election every once in a while if it means they'll hold onto their base and thus their House and most of their Senate seats. Then they'll run some guy out there in 4 or 8 years to point at how they were right all along and liberals fucked up the White House like they predicted all along.
I think the Republicans have concluded that the people's views on continued occupation of Iraq won't matter much in the end, when they can frame the race as a contest between the true-blue, patriotic trustworthy McCain against the wierd unpatriotic liberal inexperienced untrustworthy Obama.
It looks like "true-blue, patriotic trustworthy McCain" just f***ed up al Qaeda vs. Shiite vs. Sunni
yet again.
Sorry, but the guy is losing it. This has gone WAY beyond a single misstatement. If he can't keep the two straight after all this time and bad press, he's not mentally fit to be president. We've already experienced that disaster for over 7 years. We don't need to continue it one day longer than necessary.
How do you spell principles? O-C-T-O-B-E-R S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E
blah writes: "a contest between the true-blue, patriotic trustworthy McCain against the wierd unpatriotic liberal inexperienced untrustworthy Obama."
That's about right - plus they're going to have their Talk Radio Racists going full blast every single day. Before they're done most Repiglicans and yahoos will think this is a race between George Washington and Willie Horton.
I saw a report on a Gallup poll from the other day that showed McCain with had substantially higher "who do you trust to handle Iraq" numbers than Obama. The same poll indicated that most Americans thought the war was a mistake and wasn't being well run. How do you fight irrationality in the American psyche? People don't like the war, but they hate the idea of admitting defeat even more.
It all depends on how you frame the question.
For McCain and co. the correct question is "Do you want to win in Iraq?" and the correct answer is "Hell, yeah!"
On the topic of polls, what's with Survey USA - who I understand has done about as good of a job as any pollster this year - consistently showing Clinton winning PA by something like 20 points?
http://www.pollster.com/08-PA-Dem-Pres-Primary.php
They consistently and easily have the lowest "undecided" percentages. I wonder how they do their polling... is it phone-based, where they have a message say "Press 1 for Clinton, 2 for Obama" and then they wait about 10 seconds and then say "Press 9 for undecided"? I can't load their site from work.
socctty, that poll worried me too, but every other poll (at least 5) that I've seen contradicts it. At this point I'd guess Clinton by 10-15.
Sure, 65% are polled as wanting the troops out within a year, but 31% want them out immediately. That means that only 34% want a slow withdrawl over a year. Conservatives just assume each of those groups has "Stay forever" as their second choice.
Thing 1,268 that eludes Matt: people sometimes hold positions for reasons that have nothing to do with partisan advantage. I know this is a hard idea for a modern Democrat, soaked in the bath of identity politics, to deal with, but there it is.
James Robertson writes: "I know this is a hard idea for a modern Democrat, soaked in the bath of identity politics, to deal with, but there it is."
Yet another party-before-country movement conservative pretending to be something he isn't.
Yawn.
James Robertson - You say Democrats engage in "identity politics", I say they are "forced to resort to a populist agenda because of the hard swing to the social right by the GOP".
I'm sure the Republicans can read the polls as well as the Democrats. But at this point, they don't have any choice but to dance with the girl that brung 'em.
The GOP primary voters were all pro-war, so the candidates had to support it. (And I'm sure they supported the war out of principle anyway.) McCain has basically staked his candidacy on the war. How can he reverse course now? His only/best hope is that things turn around. I think that's a pipe dream, but at this point, what other viable option is there for him?
As Dave said, the Republicans are screwd, in a sense. They have to support the war because advocating an ISG-like drawdown will get them primaried out of office by their extremist base.
On the other hand, the "bet" the Republicans are taking is that polls will always advocate a drawdown of troops over the next year, every year. So all a politician has to do is say that he supports a drawdown "as soon as things get better-- which could be in the next year!" and the wider electorate won't rebel.
Voters don't agree with the Republican Iraq policy. As Dick Cheney says, "So?" Most Republican policies are unpopular. It doesn't matter, because people don't actually vote their policy preferences.
Even if voters want us out of Iraq, McCain will still be able to win some votes because the issue will become "strength and honor" vs. "cowardice," not any kind of rational policy choice.
The war mongers are morons. They're supported by morons. They only get elected because of the hard core of morons in this country.
So they have no choice but to continue to support insane wars. The fact that they prefer that because that's what they're about - that and the war profiteering - clearly shows that they don't care about the polls.
They don't run this country for the benefit of anybody but themselves, and to a lesser degree, the morons who support them.
Why can't Matt figure this out is what I want to know. Is a Harvard education that damaging to the mind? Or just the Harvard philosophy department?
That polling data (and Gallup's on the same day) indeed does not show that backing the war is a good way to win in November. What they DO show is that opposing the war was a sure-fire way to lose your GOP primary battle -- especially if the Bush White House decided to emulate the Nixon Administration in 1970 and start punishing GOP Traitors. Now the GOP nominees are boxed in, since Republicans still back the war overwhelmingly but the 1/3 of voters who are Independent join the Democrats in despising it.
Wrong war
If this war is such a clear flop with the electorate, yet the ever-opportunistic Republicans fall all over themselves to see who can be most pro-war, maybe their maneuvering to be the most pro-war isn't predicated on this being the war that will win the pro side the next election. They must think that there will be another war, a war that will have the power to stampede the electorate with fear that this war in Iraq has obviously lost, that we will be involved in by Election Day, and they are now engaged in getting in on the ground floor of being pro that war. And they presumably have good reason to think that such a war will materialize, given that their side controls the White House. The rest of us need to be thinking about that other war as well, rather than congratulating ourselves on being on the popular side of this war we have now.
Got that right, Glen. As I've pointed out in another thread, Josh Bolton said in 2006, "The Dems will lose over Iran."
They didn't pull it off then, but now is the perfect time to do so. They can split the Democrats into factions for and against an Iran war, they can marginalize the differences between the Republican and Democratic candidate by luring Obama or Clinton into supporting the war - which won't be hard because both of them are hawks on Iran, and they can give themselves a "war bounce" in the polls by emphasizing that defeating Iran is the only way to get out of Iraq (despite the fact that the US will be KICKED OUT of Iraq if it bombs Iran.)
James Robertson has it right--"what's the matter with Kansas" is that lots of voters go for what they really believe is best for the country rather than what cynics tell them they should want for narrow self-interest or ideology.
Hint to Democrats: given their track record for figuring out what the voters really believe, if Republican pros have decided this is a good approach, it might be wise to consider what the reasoning for that is rather than just trash them as venal idiots.
Most people aren't so much against the war per se as they are against continuing to LOSE the war. Lots of Republicans know this, and a shocking number of Democrats don't.
Comments closed April 22, 2008.
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