According McCain campaign internal polling, the Iraq war remains the number one issue for northwest voters:
Davis says that campaign polling shows that nationwide, the economy is the top issue voters are concerned about, with the Iraq war No. 2, and energy and gas costs in third place. But in the northwest, the war is the top issue. That’s true in only a few regions in the country, according to the McCain campaign. Here, the economy is second and gas prices are third.
One of the taunts routinely launched at Darcy Burner and her Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, is that she’s still running the last campaign, foolishly focusing on a war that most voters really don’t care all that much about anymore. But Darcy has never stopped talking with voters since narrowly losing in 2006, and she’ll be the first to tell you that this is the issue voters most often bring up when talking with her.
Huh. Turns out, they’re telling the same thing to McCain’s pollsters. Who’d a thunk?
That’s interesting. I would imagine that within the relatively affluent 8th it would be even moreso if as a region that’s true.
You end wars by winning or losing or peace treaties. There is no other way.
Who could you negotiate a peace treaty with? Al Quaeda? OK, that option is off the table. That leaves win or lose. We leave rapidly, we lose. We leave when the Iraqi government is strong and stable, we win. What else is there.
The manner of the start of the war has no bearing on where we go from here. We ARE there, wishing otherwise won’t make it so. We stabilize the democratically elected Iraqi Government and then we come home.
@ 2:
Jesus Fucking Christ you’re stupid!!
Iraq’s government has nothing to do with al Qeada who were in Afghanistan but have relocated to Pakistan. – For starters.
Darcy can start beefing up her weak resume by pouring me a cup of coffee.
@4 You could beef up your manhood if you’d quit bending over for every Republican you meet.
You don’t seem to be in touch with your loyal readers! What’s with all the McCain ads? Is his campaign paying you the big bucks? Are you trying to look like you are a little to the right of center?
That’s the last time I read this bloody blog!
McCain wants to Veto our BEER!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xob2HyCbj50
2 d
The war’s over, and what little there was of it we won five yars ago. What we need to do now is end the pointless and bloody military occupation of a country who wants us to leave.
Now, that would just be silly, wouldn’t it, because Al Qaeda are only a tiny, tiny minority of those opposing our bloody military occupation of Iraq. Most of them are just Iraqis who don’t especially like armed American trooops or the armed collaborators with the hated occupiers on every fucking corner. The rest of them are armed militias jockeying for power in the failed state we created. As occupiers, every horse you bet on is the wrong one, so we just need to get the fuck out of their way. They’ll fight each other if we’re there or if we’re not, so it’s better (for us) if we’re not.
So you say. You cite no reason for your belief in this tidy little dichotomy. But here’s a question: what if we’re staying, but things only get worse? I mean,
– if fewer and fewer major groups of Iraqi citizens support the current government
– if JAM makes huge gains in the next elections
– if the current Iraqi leaders cozy up to Iran
– if the Sunnis refuse to participate in the government
– if the Awakening Council Sunnis stop cooperating with us
– if a major component of al-Maliki’s party splits off to become a nationalist opposition to the Occupation
What then? To you guys it’s all the more reason to stay, even as we get farther and farther from what this week’s moved goalposts declare to be “victory.” Hint: all those things have already happened except that JAM is only 30% of the government until the gains they will make in the next election.
Oh, well, we can maybe leave a country we are illegally occupying for no good reason and with many ill effects, and let Iraqis rule themselves without our interference. Weird idea, I know.
Bullshit. The US government has no credibility with the world, with the American people, or with Iraq because of how we started this war. Where we go from here must be a place where we rebuild that credibility, because of how we started this war.
Hello Captain Obvious. Meet Mr. Straw Man.
No, WE don’t “stabilize the elected Iraqi government.” We can’t do that. Force of arms cannot accomplish this. We bring our troops home, and eventually they elect a stable government. Or they break apart. Who knows? Iraq is a WWI colonial construct anyway. If they don’t want to preserve it, no one should force them to.
But as usual, you aren’t even dealing in reality. Iraqis want us to leave (around 70% according to the last Iraqi government officla I wsaw interviewed). The American people want to leave (again, around 70%). We’re leaving.
Pepper @6,
It’s Google Ads context sensitive thing. I write about McCain, and voila… McCain ads show up.
@9 The Google is a wondrous thing!
Every right winger is totally ignorant about why Iraq is the way it is.
This film goes a long way to explaining that.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912593/
Of course it’s mostly wasted on a wingnut but one can hope I guess.
As some of you know I’ve been very accurate in calling elections on this blog. I was the only one who betted JCH that the Democrats would take control of not only the House but the Senate as well in 2006. There were many naysayers on this blog about my 2006 predictions, even my leftie friends.
I’ll give my predictions now, take the bull shit about how far off the mark I am, then, on Nov. 5th I’ll be laughing last because that’s the best laugh. So, without further ado here are the election results for 2008:
Meet President-elect Barak Obama. First African-American president of the United States of America and the states and D.C. that voted for him.
WA – 11
OR – 7
CA – 55
NM – 5
CO – 9
MN – 10
WI – 10
MI – 17
OH – 20*
PA – 21
IL – 21
HI – 4
FL – 27*
VA – 13
NY – 31
VT – 3
MN – 4
NH – 4
MA – 12
CT – 7
RI – 4
NJ – 15
DE – 3
MD – 10
DC – 3
326 electoral votes for Obama. **
Senate:
Democrats control 57-60 seats.
House:
Democrats retain control hold about 250-253 seats.
At 60 seats in the Senate there will be no stopping (filibustering or obstructing) the Democratic legislative agenda mandated by The People.
*Gimmie states. Obama can win without them and he’ll force McCain to spend much of his meager funds defending these traditional bell weather states while picking off states in the interior west and the newly blue VA.
**Footnote for history: John McCain was candidate who lost to the first African-American elected president. For you Trivia Pursuit players you’ll want this nugget in your head 15-20 years from now. Might be the winning question.
Pepper,
Click on the McCain ads, Goldy gets a payday when you do. Nothing like siphoning off conservative funds for a LIBERAL blogger.
Ya gotta love it.
Yep, click away on those McCain ads! But it doesn’t do any good to click more than once in a day – the Google software is supposed to correct for that.
Gee, I wonder if I can make a 1 cent contribution to McCain’s campaign? If so, I bet they would mail me a couple hundred dollars worth of publications, trying to get me to send more!
Too gad. His website only allows set-denomination contributions of not less than $25.00. He also wants people to give him their credit card number so he can take out a contribution every month.
Why would anybody in their right mind give a Republican politician their credit card number? It’s bad enough that they had control of the U.S. treasury for six of the past seven and one-half years, and look at the damage they did then!
So who’s out of touch with their district?
Dave is! Dave is!
delbert at 2
You do realize that Iraqi people are not all that interested in a democratically elected government, right? What we are doing is forcing, I believe Bush refers to it as “coercive democracy”. These people are not Americans. They do not have a cowboy mentality about freedom and rights. They have lived with theocracy for THOUSANDS of years. Your justification for staying is as wrong as our having gone in there in the first place.
You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
@12
Obama’s taking NC.
You should throw Texas into the mix, just to fuck with the wingers.
‘16. Daddy Love spews:
So who’s out of touch with their district?
Dave is! Dave is!‘
Who is in touch with his prevelant feminine side? Mommy Love is! (he shrieks!!) She proposes removing all urinals from mensrooms, as it’s been awhile since Mommy peed standing up!
Had to renew my IATA certificate for shipment of hazardous materials. The instructor was a big guy from Texas – about 6’6″, 230+ lbs, almost sixty years old. Just mention Bush’s name, and his face turns an interesting shade of violet, and he starts cussing up a storm about what a disgrace Bush is to the state of Texas, and if he had any decency he would commit suicide in order to redeem the honor of the state.
Hmmm. Makes me wonder. Is Texas even in play?????
When it was apparant that Bush was really going to invade Iraq, I was very concerned. Sure, Iraq had a large WWII-style army and our military could defeat them in the open field. But I’ve read a few books about Iraq – including the British Army’s experience in Iraq in WWI and WWII. The Iraqi people have a long history of getting defeated in war, and then making live utterly miserable for the conquerers, until they (the occupiers) can’t get out of Iraq fast enough. The longer the occupier stays, the worse it gets for them, no matter what they try to do.
Unlike some former colonies, the British were quite happy to divest themselves of Iraq, and despite their best efforts to leave behind a constitutional monarchy, that government didn’t last too long.
So I figured at the time (spring 2003), the best we could hope for is to defeat the Iraqi army, overturn the government, hand over the keys to the country to whatever Iraqi general seemed best able to take contol and be relatively friendly to us, and then get out of the country within sixty to ninety days.
This would have been the traditional British strategy for dealing with a foreign power, and it was the way they maintained control of a vast array of colonies across the world for the better part of 150 years.
But the idiots in the Bush administration DISBANDED the Iraqi army & police forces, turning millions of semi-trained soldiers loose in Iraq without employment, without immediate prospects for gainful employment, and knowledge of where all the arms and munitions are stored – unguarded. With nothing better to do, these men became easy pickings for every militia or local war-lord who wanted to make a quick grab for power.
And at the same time, it provided a force which relatively quickly began to fight against the American occupation – because that is what the Iraqis have always done to foreign occupiers.
You would think that SOMEONE with authority in the Bush administration would have bothered to read the handfull of history books regarding Iraq, and warned that this was a BAD IDEA? And it only gets worse, the longer you try to fix it?
I guess they were so smug they thought that they were smarter than everyone else, and that they could do the same thing as others had tried before, but they would get a different result????? And here we have the continued Bush/McCain insistence on continuing that failed strategy, thinking that if they continue it longer, or a little harder, the result will be different?????