Polls, Editorials Reflect Public’s Differing Views on Iraq

JEFFREY BROWN:

And we begin with a national snapshot from polls responding to last week's testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker and President Bush's speech. Joining me for that is Andrew Kohut, president of The Pew Research Center.

Andy, all that high-level attention last week for the testimony and the speeches, we just saw Congress beginning to respond, how did the public respond? Was it moved?

ANDREW KOHUT, President, Pew Research Center:

Well, it was moved in some respects, but there was no bottom line, change in bottom-line attitude toward Iraq. Certainly, Petraeus made a very good impression: 57 percent of the people that we interviewed said they approved of his recommendation; 55 percent said that he did an accurate job of giving them an assessment of what was going on, on the ground there.

But 68 percent of them told us, "He didn't change my opinion about Iraq." And if you look at the trend lines on the questions about, how well is the war going? Are we ultimately going to be successful? The July survey that we conducted, the September survey that we conducted looks exactly like the July survey: 54 percent said bring troops home as soon as possible then, and now close to 40 percent say stay the course until the country is stable, and a plurality of people continue to say that the United States will probably not succeed.

JEFFREY BROWN:

What about in terms of the military effort on the ground?

ANDREW KOHUT:

There we did see some progress, some sense of progress. The percentage of people saying the war is going well went from 36 percent to 41 percent. Now, 41 percent is still a minority view, but it's a bigger minority view. Opinion about whether the surge is working surged a little bit and went from 24 percent to 31 percent.

JEFFREY BROWN:

And most of that from Republicans, could you tell?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Most of it from Republicans; that's one of the characteristics of this war. Opinion about this war is very different between Republicans and Democrats. And Republicans, their spine was stiffened a bit by what Petraeus had to say.

For example, in July, 61 percent of Republicans said that we were making progress in defeating the insurgents; that went up to 67 percent in September. But for the Democrats, it stayed at 16 percent. Most Democrats overwhelmingly say we're losing ground, we're not making progress.

So the consequence of this is that we now have an even wider partisan gap between Republicans and Democrats on how they think the war is going and what they think we should do.

JEFFREY BROWN:

So you're seeing it as an even wider and also a hardened, more hardened partisan gap?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Yes, I mean, I think, with respect to the Democrats, that's the case, because what we saw also is the percentage of Democrats saying that their leaders are not doing enough to push Bush on Iraq. In July, that percentage was 54 percent, and in September, it was 61 percent.

JEFFREY BROWN:

I wanted to ask you about that. I want to be clear. SO this is Democrats looking at the Democratic leadership in Congress?

ANDREW KOHUT:

That's right.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Saying they haven't done enough?

ANDREW KOHUT:

So the Democrats are more frustrated. The Republicans felt a little bit better, given what Petraeus had to say and what President Bush and Crocker had to say. But all of that, what that amounts to is that both sides are further apart than they were in July. That's the consequence, the political consequence of all of this.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Does the lack of movement in public sentiment suggest to you a disconnect between — because last week in Washington, this was, you know, a big deal that they were coming to talk. This was supposed to have an impact. You're suggesting it didn't. Does that reflect some disconnect between Washington and the rest of the country?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Well, certainly, the country wasn't as tuned into this. The percentage of people attentive to this were relatively modest. President Bush got much more attention when he announced the surge back in January than when he went on television last Thursday evening.

And, certainly, the views of Democrats, the Democratic base, is really quite strident, perhaps even more strident than some of its leaders. And similarly, the Republicans that we interview are pretty committed to their point of view. So I don't know whether there's a mismatch, but the polarization we see in Washington reflects the polarization that we see amongst the public itself.

JEFFREY BROWN:

And, finally, because, of course, we are in a presidential campaign, you're suggesting that the opinion tableau, I think you call it, is pretty well set now looking towards 2008?

ANDREW KOHUT:

Well, I think this is what we've got. I mean, the Democrats were for a long time — their opinions were galvanized in opposition to the war, occurred when they thought the timeline could be tied to a spending bill. That's disappeared.

So they're frustrated. They want a leader who's going to go to achieve what the congressional leaders haven't achieved. The Republicans, on the other hand, want to stay the course, and, you know, they're 180 degrees apart.

JEFFREY BROWN:

All right, Andy Kohut. Thanks a lot.

ANDREW KOHUT:

You're welcome.