Terror, Public Opinion and The Midterms

by DemFromCT

As a followup to the Presidential Approval And The Midterms post, which looked at historical numbers, Gallup has an important summary out today on reaction to the bomb plot, which I (and others) have been highlighting.

Public confidence that the United States and its allies are winning the war against terrorism does not appear to have been boosted by the recently thwarted terrorist attack in London. Only about a third of Americans say the United States is winning, with the majority of the rest saying neither the United States nor the terrorists are winning the "war", a pattern similar to that which has been found for much of the last two years.

An analysis of the recent history of Americans' attitudes about the war against terror shows that optimism about winning against terrorism is highly related to major military offensives. When the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, and when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, the perception that the United States and its allies were winning the war against terrorism shot up well above the 50% mark. In both instances, however, this high level of optimism soon dissipated, and the data from Gallup's most recent update show that less than half of Americans say the United States and its allies are winning, more typical of the pattern found since 9/11.

Two separate points are colluding to stall the political benefit of the WoT™ to the WH (and by extention, Republicans). One is that there is now a major separation in American's mind between Iraq and the WoT™. They are not perceived to be the same thing.

51% in Poll See No Link Between Iraq and Terror Fight

Americans increasingly see the war in Iraq  as distinct from the fight against terrorism, and nearly half believe President Bush has focused too much on Iraq to the exclusion of other threats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Nor is the Iraq War popular.

Opposition among Americans to the war in Iraq has reached a new high, with only about a third of respondents saying they favor it, according to a poll released Monday

Nor will the Iraq War be the source of "optimism about winning against terrorism [that] is highly related to major military offensives" because there's none on the horizon.

The scond strain on Bush and the Republican's fall strategery is the idea that we are not winning either war.  For those that believe the two are linked, defeat-averse Americnas are discouraged (those would be Bush supporters) because falilure in iraq is failure in the WoT™. For those who don't believe the two are linked (and that would be Bush disapprovers, who are most of the country), Bush has to deal with the anger at having Iraq interfere with the WoT™ (see the NY Times/CBS poll). For the waverers and swing voters and low-information voters who win and lose elections, there's a third problem. As Dick Morris said to Sean Hannity, "If you want to be the war President, you have to win the war." That's where the Gallup analysis comes in.

This basic pattern is little changed over the last two years. In particular, despite the fact that a potential terrorist attack was thwarted by authorities in London in recent weeks, the poll shows no signs that Americans have become more convinced that the United States and its allies are winning the war against terrorism. 

Since the Republicans have accomplished little else, and since Bush and Americans alike have rightly made Iraq and terrorism the centerpiece of the Bush and Republican fall campaign, the idea that Iraq will work to R advantage is trying to make lemonade of out lemons, and failing at that, too. it's not even clear terrorism helps R's, and Iraq clearly does not. The Rs are therefore tasked to stay the course with a war president who is losing two separate wars.

Of all the words that President Bush used at his news conference this week to defend his policies in Iraq, the one that did not pass his lips was "progress."

It's why McCain had to pull back and say "I'm loyal, but I'm not stupid."This is not going to help Republicans keep the Congress in November, not even with low-information voters.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

from the WaPo, to illustrate the point:

Christopher F. Gelpi, a Duke University scholar whose research on public opinion in wartime has been influential in the White House, said Bush has little choice.

"He looks foolish and not credible if he says, 'We're making progress in Iraq,' " Gelpi said. "I think he probably would like to make that argument, but because that's not credible given the facts on the ground, this is the fallback. . . . If the only thing you can say is 'Yes, it's bad, but it could be worse,' that really is a last-ditch argument."

[DemFromCT]

actually, counting Afghanistan, Bush is losing three wars.

[ATS]

The worst argument is saying, "if we leave now the American who died shall have done so in vain."

Of course continuing will result in MORE having died in vain.

[crab nebula]

Really an open thread question: If it actually is a trend, I'm not pleased that D's are running away from party labels as R's are. What do you think, DemCt, is this really happening, or is it a selective media "story"?

[DemFromCT]

there's some suggestion it's true, but i don't know if doing it in TN is relevant.

[demtom]

Like you say about TN, Dem -- a state whose only elected Dem in the last decade-plus hardly fits the national Dem profile.

Kevin Phillips has always said he views party ID as a lagging indicator. Let the Dems have some big wins this year and '08, and run the country well...then you'll start seeing people happy to identify themselves as Dems. In the wake of Smith/Hoover, people weren't that anxious to call themselves Democrats in 1930, either; by 1934/36, they were alot more vocal.

[Daniel DiRito]

The political gallop to the November finish line is heating up and the race is certain to tighten. Get ready folks, we’ve just rounded the final turn and we’re now headed into the homestretch and that horse making a big push on the Democrats’ right flank is none other than the GOP’s Secretariat, Karl Rove. With his legal troubles apparently behind him, Rove seems to be focused like a laser on once again wearing the floral blanket. In his most recent public appearance in Ohio, Rove reiterated the talking points of the strategy upon which the GOP intends to run.

Mr. Rove, a White House adviser and the architect of Mr. Bush’s winning presidential campaigns, peppered Democrats on taxes and national security, invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and called the Iraq war “the heart of the battle” in a global war against “Islamic fascists.”

The 20-minute speech echoed Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign themes. He said Mr. Bush would not abandon the war and said of terrorists to the audience: “Who thinks if we come home, that they’re not going to follow us?”

The important thing to note in the 2006 strategy is a minor, though significant, shift in the GOP framing…a technique that has been the hallmark of their success. This week the President gave a candid answer to an oft asked question…on a topic that has been the source of repeated Democratic criticism. He was asked what Iraq had to do with 9/11 and he quickly replied, “Nothing”…but then went on to explain that he believes the lesson of 9/11 was that we must take threats seriously before they materialize.

Herein is the shift. Republicans realize that the conflation of Iraq and 9/11 is no longer the viable tool that it was during the 2002 and 2004 elections. In a classic counterintuitive Rovian shift, they have taken the Democratic strategy for 2006 and incorporated it into the GOP’s new framing. When Bush uttered “Nothing”, the revised strategy was revealed. Simply stated, the new GOP strategy is to incorporate the Democratic message into their revised rhetoric. This isn’t the first time that the Bush administration has co-opted the message of the opposition when it became apparent that they were perilously close to a position of checkmate.

Not only do they now want Democrats to make voters consider leaving Iraq, they will take it a step further and insist that voters consider the potential consequences and risks…once again invoking the power of terrorism in order to create voter doubt…all the while framing the Democrats as the object of that doubt. The goal is to make the doubt about leaving Iraq (the terror threat) greater than the dissatisfaction about the conduct of the war. Forcing voters to move beyond the GOP’s past poor performance is essential and can be achieved by refocusing voters on other more ominous potentialities.

Read the full article here:

www.thoughttheater.com

[DemFromCT]

Rove is given far too much credit for taking lemons and making them into someting totally unpalatable.