Top Election Issue: Iraq
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, The War On Terrorism, WarAnd no doubt we’ll be hearing about it more and more as the election draws closer. There’s very little else the Republicans can try to hang their hat on besides saying that the Dems will cut and run.
Iraq has become the central issue of the midterm elections. There is more dismay about how the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going than at any point since the war began more than three years ago. And the war is the dominant concern among the majority of voters who say they will be thinking about national issues, rather than local issues, when they cast their ballot for Congress this fall.Pew’s latest nationwide survey finds 58% of the public saying that the U.S. military effort in Iraq is not going well, and a 47% plurality believes the war in Iraq is hurting, not helping, the war on terrorism. The poll finds extensive public awareness of a leaked intelligence estimate suggesting that the war is spawning more terrorism. More than third of Americans (35%) say they have heard a lot about the intelligence report, and these people are much more likely than others to say the war in Iraq is hurting the war on terror.
One note, this poll was being conducted just as the Foley scandal started up, so it doesn’t reflect that.
But here’s the interesting part about those numbers…
But public attitudes about the war and what to do about the troops remain fairly stable. As was the case in early September, the public is evenly divided over whether U.S. troops should stay in Iraq until the situation there is stabilized (47%), or should be brought home as soon as possible (47%).
Anybody want to bet that’s split pretty evenly along party lines?
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 5th, 2006 and is filed under Elections, The War On Terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 5th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
“Priorities … Priorities … We don’t need no stink’n priorities!”
Its amazing how the American media works. We have lost at least eighteen more American service people during the first few days of October and Shiite Iraqi death squads are conducting small scale ethnic cleansing.
So, what are all the talking heads and politicians focused on? Surprise! Its another sex scandal. And it wasn’t even real sex.
Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley’s instant message records indicate he is a dude who gets off on fantasy cyber sex with teenaged boys. I believe this is the first virtual sex scandal in Washington DC political history.
Back here in the real world, American men and women are killed, maimed and scarred, both physically and emotionally every day. War is hell. Finally, the mainstream media is beginning to support our troops by speaking the truth about their sacrifices. more
October 6th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Listen, the media was focusing quite a bit on Iraq and still do, by the way. They’ve just shifted some of the focus off of the story.
What’s really going on is that Iraq is still being reported just as much, but the MSM is producing MORE content now so it appears as if Iraq has gotten forgotten. It hasn’t. Trust me, that’s what’s happened on our blog. My output has gone up because there’s more news. But i’m still talking about Iraq.
And by the way, this wasn’t just cyber-sex fantasy. This was a man using his power to gain access to young men and acting in a very predatory fashion. The same man who enacted many laws to stop this type of behavior. And it looks like there was a cover up to boot. Whether you like it or not, that’s a big story.