Polling Critic #39 - Bush's Trump Card on Iraq and Terrorism

Bush's Trump Card on Iraq and Terrorism ~ #39
By Alan F. Kay, PhD
© 2004, (fair use with attribution and copy to author)
Aug. 10, 2004

Any question bearing strongly on the outcome of the presidential election that produces surprising answers is worth looking at more closely. Take a look at:

(1). "Do you think the war with Iraq has made the United States safer – or less safe – from terrorism?" Gallup asked this identical question seven times from April 2003 to July 2004 with these responses:

Notice that in the nine months from the start of the war through to the close of 2003, percentages feeling safer and thereby supporting the Iraq war bounced around 52%, and marginally amounted to the majority of Americans. Then, beginning last December, the percent feeling safer shrank rapidly in six months to reach a low of 37% at the last asking, just seven weeks ago (June 21-23).

Since the principal issue of the presidential campaign, "Who will best handle terrorism and the Iraq war?" is the only issue on which President George W. Bush is clearly leading Democratic challenger John Kerry, it seems reasonable that tracking this one issue week by week might provide the leading indicator for who'll win the election. If the drop continued to election day at the same rate as the first half of the year, Kerry would seem to be a shoe-in. But there is a flaw in this reasoning.

(Q2) (CBS News/NY Times) "Have the policies of the Bush administration made the United States safer from terrorism, less safe from terrorism, or have the policies of the Bush administration not affected the U.S. safety from terrorism?"

Since Bush has managed the whole Iraq war from start to finish in an aggressive, take-charge manner, it seems reasonable that Bush would get the heat from a steadily growing number of people (already by June reaching 15% of the total population) switching from feeling "safer" to "less safe". But Bush is not losing public support to Kerry on the issue of making the United States safe, as the next question shows:

(Q3) (ABC News/Washington Post) "Who will make the country safer and more secure, Bush or Kerry?"

Making the country safer from terrorism is one of the few issues on which Bush leads Kerry significantly and that has not been changing. The 15% who have already shifted from "safer" to "less safe" have not shifted to Kerry.

We can clear up this anomaly by noting that there is only one significant difference between the wording of Q1 and of Q2 — the threat itself. In Q1 the threat is the "Iraq war" and in Q2 it is "Bush's policies." The discrepancy must be that significant numbers of people believed that Bush's policies started shifting in a way that retained his public support, and indeed the historical facts clearly seem to make that case.

During 2003, Bush focused on pursing an all-out military campaign. His mission was accomplished in a record 19 days, characterized as a slam dunk, and at costs well below the expectations of naysayers. The success lingered for months, even as the U.S. forces were not well prepared to govern the Iraqi people, nor to provide for their security, nor restore basic utility functions. Looting and insurgency started to take its toll. Beginning in 2004, Bush began to adopt a different policy – announcing the stepwise introduction of an interim Iraqi government with a democratic election by January of 2005, refusing to introduce more U.S. troops into Iraq but instead contracting out military functions to commercial corporations, announcing in June a push for quickly installing a caretaker Iraqi government, and a commitment to withdraw U.S. forces completely as soon as the new prime minister, Iyad Allawi, wanted them to leave. Although it is uncertain whether Bush would follow through on these policies that were largely intended to be implemented at some later time, the public apparently accepted them as a reasonable and beneficial change in policy.

Since Bush has top pollsters working for him, it is not surprising that he would at least pay lip service to the policies that polling shows the people want. Never mind that Bush has made clear that we might have to be in Iraq for many years. About half of the people, those who are pro-Bush, accept that. The shift in policies was significant to 15% of the population, people who were not drawn to Kerry and were satisfied with Bush's policy changes. This analysis shows that support for Bush will not drop significantly just because increasing numbers of people agree that the war has made the United States less safe. Similarly, the number of people who believe the "war was not worth it" has not increased in recent months. Other developments, perhaps the economy and other domestic and environmental issues, will affect the election outcome, still almost a dead-heat, more than Iraq and terrorism.