CBS poll: Petraeus testimony has only slight effect on war support
posted at 9:06 pm on September 17, 2007 by Allahpundit
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We’ll be seeing a bunch of these before/after polls this week, especially since the media already has a sense of how they’re going to go. By “war support,” I mean the number of people willing to accept a troop commitment of two years or more to see the mission through. That was at 20% before Petraeus testified; now it’s 22%, on the strength of (only?) 49% of Republicans. They don’t provide the cross-tabs so I can’t tell whether the other 51% of the GOP wants a longer commitment of five years or a shorter one of less than two, but even assuming a 4 to 1 lopsided split towards the shorter commitment, you’re looking at a lot of disaffected Republican voters at each extreme and no easy way for the nominee to bridge them.
The most dramatic movement is among people who say they want troop levels increased. That was 11% two weeks ago and now it’s only 6%, presumably on the strength of Petraeus’s recommendation that the surge brigades be drawn down. Correspondingly, the number who want troop levels reduced has risen from 35% to 39%. The one hopeful sign for war supporters: only 47% want a drawdown larger than the one Petraeus has prescribed before next summer.
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Up until some pollster takes my opinion, all polls in my view are about a useful as my Barry Manilow collection. Nada
Kini on September 17, 2007 at 9:13 PM
Polls. Polls. Polls. I’m so sick of all these damn polls.
SoulGlo on September 17, 2007 at 9:13 PM
The American people have been locked into this belief that we’ve already lost the war and that the only option is to go home. They’ve not based that on fact or testimony, but what they hear from others. They see anti-war ads on tv saying we’ve lost. They see the media reporting only the bad, and hardly any of the good. They see Dingy Harry saying the war is lost.
So when they hear Petraeus testify that the surge is working, they don’t believe it, even though it’s true. At this point, Jesus Christ himself could come down to tell them it’s working, and they’d say “But I saw the commercial on tv!”.
Remember that George C. Scott mock-up a while back. “These people wouldn’t know a real threat to their freedom, unless it interrupted the power supply to their XBox or killed a half-a-million people”. It’s sad, but true.
amerpundit on September 17, 2007 at 9:16 PM
Aren’t polls like this useless? Who knows what will be going on in 2 years? Despite many in congress trying to play both sides, you defacto support the war unless you demand troop withdrawls immediatly.
Resolute on September 17, 2007 at 9:17 PM
I did a quick poll,Dan Rather,CBS lied,nothing to see
or believe on CBS,so move it along now.haha.
canopfor on September 17, 2007 at 9:20 PM
I am pretty sure that population support or lack of support for the war is a lagging indicator. Need to give it a few weeks.
bnelson44 on September 17, 2007 at 9:28 PM
There is only one who is going to determine troop levels, and that is Bush. It will be under the advisement of his generals, and that is it. These polls effectively mean nothing. Bush has already demonstrated (think amnesty) that he will do what he thinks is right. And right now what he thinks is right is what Crocker, Petraeus, and the Joint Chiefs thinks is right. The troops will be there through ‘08, this will be a presidential issue, it will require a plan by the candidates. Conclusion: polls concerning support of the war are meaningless in terms of what will actually happen. It may have a political effect for ‘08, but not before.
Weight of Glory on September 17, 2007 at 9:31 PM
The problem is getting the funding.
amerpundit on September 17, 2007 at 9:34 PM
I think most people have already had their minds made up before General Petraeus even showed up. That certainly seems to be true of most congressional Democrats.
Bigfoot on September 17, 2007 at 9:35 PM
i think that the democrats shooting themselves in the feet before the general spoke basically killed all of the anti war propaganda effects that they were looking for.
the american public dosen’t seem to like bigmouths cutting down soldiers in uniform or at least has not liked it in the past.
C
pk on September 17, 2007 at 9:52 PM
Yes, funding is always the problem. But with all the negative spin for four years, they have yet to do it. And it is my belief they won’t. polls like this, and much worse, have been out there for years, both when the repubs had control, and when the dems had control. Heck, the dems even say that it was their stance on the war that got them the majority! And how do they try to actualize that…by trying to dictate troop levels! That’s absurd! If they had the kind of backing these polls claim they have, then they would just go for the whole sha-bang and de-fund the war. But they haven’t…and they won’t. two weeks into the war, when the sandstorms hit our troops for the first time, Kennedy waddled up to the first mic. he could find and spoke the ‘Q’ word for the first time. Since then, for four years, there has been a never ending narrative being hammered into the heads of Americans. Every poll says the same thing that the media is reporting, which is the same thing the Dems are trying to run on. And yet…no de-funding. I don’t see anything in the future, especially a simple round of polling, that will change our posture in Iraq.
Weight of Glory on September 17, 2007 at 10:08 PM
And as far as this new round of “hide the funds,” it appears to be the same game of chicken the dems played with the initial funding of the surge back in the Spring. Bush didn’t blink, the dems did. Again, why did they blink? with poll numbers concerning Iraq being what they are, why did they go ahead and fund it? I believe (and I could be wrong) it is because the political hit they would take if they appeared to back out of a fight just when we were beginning to make some progress, would be very large. Also, I am sure that the date the Pres. gave to Congress to fund the war efforts was one that took into consideration the fact that the dems would drag their feet. In fact, I really hope that the amount they asked for last year was enough to partially cover this year so as to allow for the surge to continue while Politicians make their silly little points about how America sucks, and that it is all our fault. Again, the dems could still really surprise me by holding out on funding the war, but I doubt it.
Weight of Glory on September 17, 2007 at 10:19 PM
There will be a poll in November 2008 that the Republican candidates will have to try and come out on top on. It looks like the presidential and congressional candidates are going to be in the heat of things in 12 months with probably 130,000 or more troops in Iraq.
If the Democrats are pushing a draw-down message and the Republicans are pushing a more open-ended commitment, the polls we are seeing today are going to make it a tough election for Republicans.
Maybe the Americans polled are listening to Petraeus when he says that ther are limits to what the military can do. Perhaps things would look up if Bush and the State Department put more financial and political pressure on Maliki. Until the basic agreements of government are made among the Shiite, Sunni and Kurd groups Iraq is likely to consume our military resources, and that is going to require the Republican candidates to do a lot of work with the American people.
dedalus on September 17, 2007 at 10:28 PM
None of this matters for now. Bush isn’t going to quit.
And the Dems are too craven to take any action for which they can be clearly held accountable.
Remember, Viet Nam was not de-funded until well AFTER troops were withdrawn. And that was in a period when anti-war sentiment was orders of magnitude stronger.
The next Prez will be a Dem with a Dem Congress and the Dem party will have to either finally grow up or destroy the nation.
Flip a coin.
Stephen M on September 17, 2007 at 10:42 PM
Forget about both Democratic and Republican arguments for getting out of or remaining in Iraq. The fact is that Al Qaeda has chosen Iraq as its ‘Tour De Force’. Any American withdrawal will be viwed world-wide as a total military disaster akin to the German defeat at Stalingrad.
Actually the Democrats are quite correct in their theory that the Iraqi Government is totally incompetent. Al Qaesda, upon our disgraceful retreat, will capture the country in a matter of DAYS not weeks or months. But these fools don’t realize THAT WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO REMAIN THERE IN SUFFICIENT NUMBERS–not only for the reason cited–but also because we put our sworn enemy in charge of oil reserves rivaling Saudi Arabia. How about $300 a barrel oil and a stock market collapse?–that’s just for starters. Next will be nuclear weapons training.
MaiDee on September 17, 2007 at 10:46 PM
The Germans had more than 700,000 casualties at Stalingrad. The battle ended with the capture of the German Field Marshall Paulus and almost 100,000 German soldiers. About 90% of those soldiers didn’t survive captivity.
The analogy doesn’t work too well since General Petraeus and our soldiers aren’t in danger of being captured and we aren’t facing military attacks from forces comparable to the Allied and Soviet forces. Things might be bad for us, but there is no way in the world I’d want to trade strategic positions with the Germans in January 1943.
dedalus on September 17, 2007 at 11:05 PM
A great opportunity has been just about flushed down the toilet.
Again, the loserville Americas enemy lovers have been allowed to define the debate and Conservatives have (no great surprise) allowed themselves to be shafted, again.
The pink lady could have denied the ad just like a great number of other nutty cause ads, but they had no choice but to publish it and since they’re part of the problem they wanted too.
General Petraeus is an man of extraordinary integrity, the only reason an ad like this was deemed necessary was that for liberals the news from Iraq is so bad that it actually threatened split in the Democratic party.
The party invested in defeat needed a big enough distraction that Democrats could hide behind it and lash out (which they did literally) at a man and a report they approved in the first place.
If they dared let the man’s report stand as the truth it was, even the America hate enablers in the MSM couldn’t have contained the damage to their paid for symbiotic politicians.
Instead of capitalizing on the obvious flaming bag of dog doo that the liberals had stepped in moronic people registered as Republicans incredibly aided the Soros bot clone army in their disgusting vilification of an American many times more deserving of respect than they are.
Congratulations should be in order the American socialist proxy party is whole and driving on towards the unthinkable.
Speakup on September 17, 2007 at 11:14 PM
I mean the number of people willing to accept a troop commitment of two years or more to see the mission through.
I think that a majority of voters would be willing to accept another two years if they actually thought that would result in success at turning Iraq into a functioning rule of law, respect for human rights democracy, ally in the “War on Terror”, etc., but they do not think another two years would be anything more than another wasted two years and then another two years and then another two years … … … … … …
MB4 on September 17, 2007 at 11:29 PM
Things might be bad for us, but there is no way in the world I’d want to trade strategic positions with the Germans in January 1943.
dedalus on September 17, 2007 at 11:05 PM
Yes!
Comparing American withdrawal from Iraq to the German defeat at Stalingrad would be like comparing one of John Kerry’s “wounds” to losing a leg.
MB4 on September 17, 2007 at 11:36 PM
First, a caveat: Take any CBS poll with a grain of salt until you see the sample — and we don’t have one here. The weekend polling also skews the result.
Second, AP’s definition makes sense if you’re a hard-headed realist like AP, but may make no sense in interpreting a political opinion poll.
Here’s what Dem pollster Mark Mellman had to say about this back in 2005, comparing different Iraq polls:
Please note: The 75% number from 2005 compared with the 72% number today.
In this context, 40% of adults wanting to stay more than a year actually may be encouraging. Better still, 58% expect to stay longer than two years. People may not like the situation in Iraq — who wouldn’t want to get most of our troops out of Iraq, under the right conditions? But they are being realistic about our commitment there — moreso than AP seems to think, anyway.
Karl on September 17, 2007 at 11:55 PM
700.000 German casualties at Stalingrad? The German attacking force did not exceed 250,000 and there were not more than 50,000 reinforcements during the entire battle. Total German losses were about 147,000 plus 91,000 captured (most of whom were killed). Although these figures are stupendous they are a far cry from the wild exaggeration used to make a point. Russian casualties were about 500,000–making total casualties about 700,000. If your figures are that inaccurate perhaps your theories are as well. Why don’t you spin on your pointed head like a top?
MaiDee on September 18, 2007 at 12:14 AM
MaiDee,
My numbers include the Romanian, Italian and Hungarian forces fighting under the Germans. They are also casualty numbers not KIA numbers. Our capture numbers, and the fate of the prisoners, match up.
Nevertheless, using your numbers, are you asserting that an Iraq pullout would have a Stalingrad-sized impact on the U.S.
Spin? Pointed head? Are you in the habit of making requests that people ignore?
dedalus on September 18, 2007 at 12:57 AM
Polls are all ran by people from Washington. They keep the answers they want to hear in their freezers. With the cash.
Griz on September 18, 2007 at 1:27 AM
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