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September 17, 2008

Iraq Becomes a Non-Issue in '08 Campaign

By Reid Wilson

As the U.S. retains more than 140,000 troops in Iraq, spends billions of dollars every week and racks up both successes and losses, poll after poll indicates the war that could very well define George W. Bush's presidency has become almost a non-issue in congressional elections.

It's an understandable phenomenon. As Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy, Wall Street wobbles and the Dow Jones sheds hundreds of points, voters overwhelmingly say the economy is their top priority. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll showed 41% of respondents picked the economy, jobs or gas prices as their top issue, while just 10% said the war in Iraq was tops in their minds. "There's no bad news coming out of Iraq," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "The war is gone as an issue."

Congress has gotten the message; this week, the House is debating Democratic legislation to open limited areas of the Outer-Continental Shelf to oil exploration in a move designed to bring down gas prices. Republicans have used Democratic opposition to drilling effectively in recent weeks, and House Republican Leader John Boehner continues to hammer home his "all of the above" energy plan.

Polls certainly show a trend of voter disinterest along with a corresponding rise in anxiety about the economy. The last time the Post/ABC poll showed Iraq as the most important issue in voters' minds was November 2007.

Democrats acknowledge that the war has faded from voter consciousness, but the party can still make an argument that the billions going to Iraq are part of the country's larger economic woes. "When you're talking about $10 billion a month at the time the Iraqi government has a surplus of $70 billion, people have to ask the question, why are you still focusing on rebuilding Iraq when you have bridges falling down in places like Minneapolis?" Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Chris Van Hollen said in an interview at the GOP convention in St. Paul.

"We're not doing what they said we were going to do, which is pay for this reconstruction out of the Iraqi oil revenues," Van Hollen continued. The Iraqis "have got a surplus and we're still shelling out and footing the bill."

Part of the reason for the decline in voter interest over the war, political watchers said, is because headline-grabbing violence has waned. But even on an issue that so clearly favors Democrats -- 60% of registered voters told Post/ABC pollsters the war in Iraq was not worth fighting -- political danger lurks.

"The Democrats, for whom opposition to the Iraq war had been a defining issue have de-emphasized it because of the decrease in violence since the surge," said Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker. "While small groups within the Democratic base continue to be exercised over it, most others seem to have conceded that, for one reason or other, things have improved."

Democrats have run a few advertisements across the country accusing Republicans of having enabled the war by voting with President Bush. One ad released yesterday by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee features the parents of a soldier killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq who are now critical of Republican Senator Norm Coleman for not standing up to the president.

But the lull in violence has produced a corresponding drop in the amount of airtime and column inches the media devotes in Iraq. But while violence is down, it's been down before, and any uptick could bring the issue back. "Although Iraq has faded from the political landscape, it might reappear as an urgent topic before Election Day. The situation there remains fluid," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who ran Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrat said, "are still in the backs of voters' minds."

If that happens, said Baker, Republicans could once again find themselves on the wrong side of an issue that significantly hurt the party during the 2006 elections. "Republicans, who might want to capitalize on the improvement, have been wary for fear that events may take a bad turn," Baker said. "McCain extols the surge and has taken credit for its apparent success, [but] he is too clever not to press the case too vigorously."

With Iraq off the table, Republicans have lost an albatross that weighed down many in the 2006 elections. "Iraq is not the challenge to us that it was," National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Cole told Real Clear Politics. "In some places, it's an asset."

Democrats continue to push the issue, but voter sentiment isn't as outraged as it was just months ago. And now, with Wall Street in tumult, barring a major and violent catastrophe, the American voter has largely decided that the economic crisis is more important than the war in Iraq.

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