Nov 19 2007
Bellweather States Ohio & Florida Points To Shifting Views On Iraq
Ohio is a notoriously bellweather (or maybe in this 50-50 nation that should be weathervane) state. It totters left and right depending on the prevailing mood of the country. Like FL it is considered a purple state at best. So it is always useful to know what the people of Ohio (my mother’s home state) are thinking about Iraq. If I were a liberal dem some recent poll numbers would scare the daylights out of me:
46 percent said the war was going “very well” or “fairly well,” and 53 percent said it was going “not too well” or “not at all well.” …
47 percent said the United States made the right decision in invading Iraq, 51 percent said it was the wrong decision and 1 percent had no opinion. …
50 percent thought troops should be brought home as soon as possible and 48 percent thought troops should stay until the situation is stabilized.
If you look at the poll’s internals you find the Democrats are fighting the tide of Republican and Independent thinking. Which means they are isolating themselves into a potential minority position (duh!).
I should note these numbers are not much different from September 2006, but they clearly do not show a huge swing towards defeatism and getting out of Iraq. IN fact in Sept 2006 (contrary to Surrendercrat claims) the people of Ohio were still for keeping our troops in the country until it stabilized (6 out of 10). This seems to indicate not only is the nation split on Iraq, it could easily go back to supporting our efforts if they begin to bear fruit and it looks like our efforts will cripple al-Qaeda.
The news out of Florida is just as bad:
Former Republican New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani would easily defeat his Democratic rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, in the Florida presidential race, according to a poll released today.
If the two New Yorkers are their parties’ nominees, Giuliani would best Clinton 50 percent to 43 percent, according to Mason-Dixon figures. Seven percent were still undecided.
Guiliani can take NY and other New England states. If he gets Florida and the GOP reliable Texas the Dems have no hope in 2008. I would say the shifting sands of Iraq have not yet finished doing their damage to the Dems hopes in 2008.
I would not want to be a liberal democrat claiming the successes we see are not real and the credibility hit al-Qaeda has taken in the Muslim and Arab world was not important. I would not want to argue the best we can hope for is utter defeat in Iraq when victory is being celebrated there right now.
I mean even die hard liberals see the writing on the wall!
In the perverse “logic†of Democratic Party leaders, this do-nothing strategy was designed to bring Democrats a historic victory in 2008, when American voters, angry about the quagmire in Iraq, and disgusted with eight years of Republican misrule, would supposedly hand Democrats the presidency and health majorities in both houses of Congress.
But the American public is not that stupid. With Bush and Cheney leaving, they won’t buy a campaign based on running against those two disasters.
Polls are showing that the majority of Americans are at least as disgusted at Democrats in Congress as they are with the Republicans—maybe more so. Since last November, public approval of the new Democratic-led Congress has fallen from a post- election high of 65 percent to a current level of about 20 percent, depending on the poll. That’s lower than President Bush’s record low approval rating of 24 percent.
It is probably even worse than this person realizes.
AJ
The far left election analysis types have been screaming for the last two or three weeks with the mantra that Ohio is theirs with absolutely not a shade of doubt.
But if you read their logic as to why, you might see that cherry tree befor George Washington cut the durn thing down.
“Former Republican New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani would easily defeat his Democratic rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, in the Florida presidential race,”
Okay, so there we have Florida and Texas firmly behind Rudy. I am still saying that whoever gets Texas gets the country and right now Rudy has Texas.
I agree with you about Rudy and Texas – Thompson seems to be on cruise control, thinking he doesn’t even have to campaign. Rudy’s already come through the state more than once gathering key support. Nobody else is even trying.
Before anyone else says it, yeah, Ron Paul is from Houston. Most everyone here has known that Paul is nutty as a fruitcake for a long, long time.
Here’s the thing that I use in my argument with Democrats:
New York City is not a burb full of bumpkins. Those people are NOT hicks. NYC is populated with metropolitan Democrats. They elected Rudy twice and until he made noises about running for President, were raving about how well he did.
Now if you take someone that Democrats … New York City Democrats, would put in office TWICE and run them for President, what problem could any Democrat anywhere in the country have with him?
If there was ever a candidate who could draw voters from both parties, it will be Rudy. It certainly isn’t going to be Clinton, Obama, or Edwards.
Ohio had its own special set of problems. The Republican party there just really screwed up. Kind of like the Democrats in LA.