Antiwar voters favor McCain by large margins [View All]

[eridani]

No, not people who are antiwar because they think it's immoral to attack a country that was never a threat to us, but the majority who don't like it being so expensive and hard on our soldiers.

This would be quite enough of a problem even without Clinton sharpening the guillotine that will cut her own neck off as well as Obama's. The trend is already there, but she just made it a whole lot worse by using Republican framing. She may have given us a McCain presidency.

Maybe we still have a chance if we can make use of McCain's temper tantrums.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/79351/

But when the issue is war and peace, Democrats should be as wary as George Tenet about predicting a "slam dunk." Frank Rich, like so many others, assumes that voters who are against the war will choose the candidate who is against the war. Ah, if only our fellow citizens were indeed so logical, how much easier it would be to forecast elections -- and what a different nation this would be.

In fact, the polling numbers from late February and early March already show a less logical, more disturbing trend. A clear majority still think the war was a mistake. But when the question is which candidate will do best handling the war, McCain wins every time. In an LA Times/Bloomberg (LAT/B) poll, it's no contest. He outpolls Clinton on the question 51-35 and outpolls Obama 47-34. A Washington Post/ABC (WP/ABC) poll pitted McCain only against Obama. Though the result was closer, McCain still won 48-43. Yet 63% in that poll said the war was not worth fighting.

In a New York Times/CBS News (NYT/CBS) poll, 58% said the U.S. should never have attacked Iraq. Yet again McCain gets the highest score on "making the right decisions on Iraq"; 58% are confident about McCain (27% "very" confident), 57% about Obama (only 20% "very" confident), and 50% about Clinton. Among the crucial independent voters, McCain gets 62% confidence, while Obama gets only 54% and Clinton 51%. Though 83% of Democrats say the war was wrong, a whopping 42% are confident McCain will make the right decisions on the war, while 21% of Democrats have no confidence in Obama and the same number no confidence in Clinton.

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Some pundits argue that the Democratic candidate have no choice. McCain's campaign against "cut-and-run" surrender -- which boils down to a charge of Democratic cowardice and treason -- is so powerful that his opponent will have to confront it head on and end up making it the central campaign issue. In other words, the Republicans have already found a way to control the terms of the fall debate.

If that's true, the current poll numbers send a warning sign. A lot of voters who oppose the war will be logically consistent and vote for the candidate who wears the label "antiwar" -- but perhaps not enough to give that candidate a victory. The voters who decide the outcome may be those who oppose the war yet choose McCain, because they feel that his superior character makes him best suited to deal with the war.

That drives rational progressives nuts, but their rage and despair won't change the outcome. What could change the outcome is a strategy that faces up to the irrational facts. That might mean starting right now to shift the focus from war to economy. It might mean reframing the war as an economic issue, and finding some other symbolic vehicle for the battle over "character" issues. It might mean whatever other approach the Democratic strategists can invent.