In The LA Times' analysis of their early state poll from earlier this week, they explored their findings that not only do Democrats at large in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina feel Hillary Clinton is the candidate most likely to end the war in Iraq, but those that "chose the Iraq war as the most important issue" do as well.
Comparing just the top 3 candidates, when asked "Regardless of your choice for president, who do you think would be best at ending the war in Iraq," results are as follows:
All Democrats:
| Candidate | IA | NH | SC |
| Clinton | 33 | 32 | 36 |
| Obama | 15 | 15 | 20 |
| Edwards | 8 | 9 | 12 |
Those that "chose the Iraq war as the most important issue":
| Candidate | IA | NH | SC |
| Clinton | 30 | 32 | 63 |
| Obama | 17 | 17 | 13 |
| Edwards | 26 | 14 | 9 |
Edwards's strong stance against the war is clearly paying dividends for him in Iowa among anti-war Democrats, but the fact that support for Clinton does not appreciably decline among those for whom Iraq is the most important issue (and in fact rises demonstrably in South Carolina) illustrates just how successful Clinton has been in portraying herself as an anti-war candidate despite having voted for the war AND refusing to apologize for it AND repeatedly saying she'll leave tens of thousands of troops in Iraq.
These results should perhaps come as no surprise, as they echo the findings of a
national Pew poll from August that showed that the support each candidate receives was virtually identical among those that say the congressional leadership is doing "the right amount" to push back against Bush to end the war and those who say the leadership is "not doing enough." In other words, voters see very little distinction between the candidates on Iraq, despite the best efforts of Clinton's rivals to make those distinctions clear. Edwards: "no timeline, no funding!"; Richardson: "no residual troops!"; Obama: "I opposed this war from the beginning!" Yet those that count the war as their top concern pick the hawk of the bunch as their preferred candidate. It's enough to make Chris Bowers want to bang his head against flat surfaces.
In
his post about The LA Times article, he writes:
Reading this article left with a tremendous feeling of hopelessness and disempowerment. Is it really possible to break through this bubble of disinformation on Iraq that Democratic elites are complicit in maintaining? [...] Can policy ideas change campaigns?
On Iraq at least, it's beginning to appear unlikely. From The LA Times:
Democratic pollster Dave Beattie, who is not affiliated with a campaign, said Clinton's rivals risked reaching a "point of diminishing returns" if they focused too heavily on differences between them and Clinton on Iraq.
Most voters, he said, are not concerned about the differences, given that each candidate is essentially critical of the war and promises to end it. [...]
"None of the Democratic candidates has a position that is outside the realm of acceptable for what the Democratic electorate is looking for," Beattie said, even though "it may not be their absolute favorite position."
But there's something else at work here: Hillary Clinton is benefiting from the fact that there is a distinct gap between how she is perceived by the party faithful and how she actually votes as senator and campaigns for president. For example, according to
The National Journal's composite senate rankings for 2006, Hillary Clinton is the least liberal of the Democratic senators running, getting a liberal score of 70.2 vs. Biden's 77.5, Dodd's 84 and Obama's 86 (the 10th most liberal score.) But in a new
Rasmussen Poll out today, more Democrats see Clinton as "liberal" (33%) than either Obama (31%) or Edwards (21%.) And while a solid 58% of Democrats identifies Clinton as moderate or conservative, a whopping 66% think John Edwards, the candidate running the most progressive campaign, is either moderate or conservative.
It's this very gap in perception vs. reality that has made it so difficult for Clinton's challengers to make any headway in the polls and as The LA Times article makes clear, it's based less on anything tangible than it is on the emotional associations Democrats have of her.
Gayle Moore, an Iowa nurse, wants U.S. troops "out, out, out" of Iraq as soon as possible. Darleen McCarthy of South Carolina fears that Iraq is turning into "another Vietnam."
But when these two Democrats vote in January to help decide their party's 2008 presidential nominee, neither plans to support the self-styled antiwar candidates. Instead, they are siding with the one top contender who voted to authorize the invasion and has refused to apologize for that -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"It's just a gut feeling," said Moore, 53, a mother of five...
As Drew Westen writes eloquently in his book The Political Brain, if there's one thing we should take away from Gore's and Kerry's losses it's that people don't vote on policy and ideology alone. In fact, Westen makes the case that the emotional associations voters have for a candidate are a far better predictor of how they will vote. So Edwards's constant repetition of his call for "no timeline, no funding" won't necessarily move voters, but his saying it in prime time sitting at a desk with the American flag behind him (activating the "presidential" associations people have with that imagery) just might.
