Well, well. The elements of a surprise thriller are in a
CNN poll released today. The title of the article says what they perceive people want to hear: " Poll: GOP better against terrorism, Dems better on Iraq" but ignores a more interesting result they report in the body of the article.
The poll reports that on the issue of "terrorism" (whatever that might entail, I guess), Republicans were favored by 48 percent of respondents, versus 38 percent for Democrats. A nice change recently reflected in other public opinion polls shows that on the war in Iraq, respondents favored Democrats over Republicans by 47 percent to 41 percent.
The one that got my attention, though, was the one that said Democrats' handling of the economy was favored by 52 percent, Republicans' by 38 percent! This should be brought up constantly by our Democratic candidates. Everyone knows their bottom line has been crushed by the Republicans - AGAIN. Run the campaign against the Republican handling of Iraq, but don't let them get away with totally underminining our economy!
Democrats have long been viewed as "better" on issues of domestic policy, while Republicans have been able to dominate the perception of the issue of which party is better for the economy. While CNN articles like this one barely mention what I view as a bombshell in the middle of yet-another-poll-about-Iraq, the rest of us need to put these figures out where lots of people can see them.
UPDATE: The poll was conducted by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of CNN. 1,033 Americans were telephoned for this poll. Margin of error estimated at +/- 3 points.