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Electoral calculation, or Lobby ownage?

By Michael J. Smith on Friday June 16, 2006 01:49 PM

JSP passed this along:

A piece on Counterpunch quotes a moveon.org mailing as follows:

To prove that Iraq is important to focus on during the election we hired a top political polling firm to investigate the opinions of voters in the top 68 "swing" districts-two-thirds of these districts are represented by Republicans.

Here is what we found:

  • The war is by far the most important issue to voters in these districts right now.
  • By wide margins these voters think the war was a mistake and not worth it. People are angry about the war.
  • A discussion about Iraq during the campaign increases support for the Democrat.
  • A Democrat who takes a firm stand for getting out of Iraq does better than a Democrat who takes a wishy-washy position-even in the face of Republican attacks like, "cut and run."
  • Republicans are vulnerable to all sorts of attacks-including their blind support for Bush's policy of never-ending war.
  • Voters are universally angry about how defense contractors have been put ahead of our troops and how priorities here at home have been neglected.
I seem to recall that some panelists at Yearly Kos cited similar results (or possibly the same results).

Now given that this is so -- why is the Democratic Party still so gun-shy on this issue? Frankly, it makes me wonder whether they're not motivated less by electoral calculation than by a certain, erm, Lobby.

Comments (6)

jsp:

t'is true
this
play's the thing
to catch the conscience of the swing

but to win this way
is to lose
the money of that ...
zionic thing

Tim D:

In addition to THE LOBBY the Arms Lobby has to be right up there with them...

js paine:

my guess big energy trumps that pair
and they still have wall streets ear if not heart
but here we're getting
too telegraphic
to be enlightening
i'll cease

Post 911 was a convergence of forces - a perfect storm. It was no one single force, but then it never is. One of the most important cabals was Cheney's secret energy task force

Of all the dems problems the most serious is not realizing that GWOT is mostly a fiction and al-Zarqawi is mostly a black psy ops cover for the El Salvador solution (maybe they do know).

Thanks for the link. I have been trying to figure out the meaning of the paper and I had never seen this angle. It's perfectly plausible.

I would never misunderestimate the party's ability to sell anyone down the river but if you watch deep fundamentalism, christian zionists are being manufactured and mobilized by the boatloads these days

It's all ugly business, the democrats need to go the other way - find the money somewhere else.

js paine:

fp:

the scape goat line
rings true to me

as usual
anti jew sounds
make a nice cover
for the energy boyz

whether
they miscalced here
which i doubt
or if
the presenthigh price
" nice supply constraint"
was the prefered eventuality all along

at any rate
it'll be fun
to watch the neo cons
get bounced off
the GOP bridge
like super k was

its really a trite common place
it works so f ing well

blame jews
for any
failed high risk high stakes
project

like the cold war
coming and going

or
the great war
losing and wining


or as in this case

a mid east imperial botchery

upward or downward

but i must point
carefully
what i take to be
the heft of the barb
of mjs

the democratic party unlike the republican
is to a signifigant
degree
" dependent "
today
on donors
who if not
zionist are
surely sensitive
to the fate of the jews
inside
the present day
state of israel
and more broadly
to the "maybe again "
glint
of a rising
anti semitism

and so leverage is there
to keep
a failed mid east
policy alive
some what longer
on the donk front
then you'd expect
by polling
the views
of its base

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