Do the Dems Have a Plan?

Most folks don’t think so.

Though voters apparently embraced the Democratic mantra of changing course in Iraq, a majority of the public did not detect a clear Democratic blueprint for ending the war. Fifty-seven percent of all adults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; 29 percent said they do. The poll of 1,002 adults has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

That finding strikes at the heart of a Democratic dilemma. The party has been of one voice in criticizing President Bush’s strategy for the war but has been more equivocal on how to move in a different direction.

I’ll first restate my dissatisfaction with polling in general. One of the reasons is that just because a majority thinks something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Having said that, it’s interesting that the AP waited until after the election to conduct the poll. Had they done so beforehand, some more folks might have asked the hard questions about who they intended to vote for. Basically this is a “Now they tell us” moment.

Of the 29 percent that think the Dems do have a plan, I wonder how many of them consider “running away” a plan. All those votes should really be in the “do not have a plan” category.

If at least 2/3rds of the country don’t think the Dems have a plan, then how can the media keep saying that the election was a referendum on the war? Did most of America really decide to give control of the war to a party that they believed had as little or less an exit strategy than the other? This makes absolutely no sense.

Technorati Tags: poll, Associated Press, Iraq, war, Democrats

Filed under: Democrats • Media • Politics • Polls • War

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