Pew poll out. Opposition to air strikes grows: 63% to 28% against.
Republicans, in particular, have turned against Syrian airstrikes. A week ago, Republicans were divided about evenly: 35% favored and 40% opposed military airstrikes in response to the government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Today, Republicans oppose airstrikes by an overwhelming 70% to 21% margin, with 51% saying they are strongly opposed.
Despite Obama’s efforts to raise support for military action, Democrats continue to oppose airstrikes. Currently, 53% of Democrats oppose military airstrikes against Syria while 35% support them; the margin is little changed from a week ago (29% favored, 48% opposed).
The public thinks that the United States must do something to register its disapproval of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Six-in-ten agree that the U.S. must act to show that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. However, even among those who express this view just 42% favor U.S. airstrikes against Syria while 51% are opposed.
A narrow majority of the public (54%) says the U.S. has a moral obligation to stop the violence against civilians. But an even higher percentage (75%) says that U.S. airstrikes in Syria are likely to make things in the Middle East worse. And just 39% say the U.S. will lose credibility around the world if it does not act in Syria.
http://www.people-press.org/2013/09/09/opposition-to-syrian-airstrikes-surges/
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to a Democratic president. It is an odd-looking poll result which, in normal times, would have us scratching our heads.
The declines in the "Don't Know" responses is interesting. For independents the DK declined by 14% and they basically all switched to Oppose. For Democrats the DK declined by 11% and they split with about half going to Oppose and half to Support.
The weirdest change was, of course, for republicans. Their DK declined by 15% also (all of whom switched to Oppose) but for some reason (and I doubt it is due to deep political thought 
), another 14% of those who had been in Support a week earlier switched to Oppose. It might be that republicans reflexively supported the idea of bombing somebody but, after a week of listening to Rand Paul and remembering who the president is, came to their "senses".
