War in Iraq is not, let me repeat that, NOT an important issue in American politics this year. It’s so over as far as “We, the people of these United States” are concerned. Really. I have the official word from The New York Times’ Adam Nagourney that Americans no longer worry about the BILLIONS of dollars we are sinking into Halliburton and Friends’ coffers the “Central Front in the War on Terror” and the thousands of lives being lost “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here,” so it must be true.
Domestic Issues Now Outweigh Iraq
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: January 3, 2008. . . Even though polls show that Iowa Democrats still consider the war in Iraq the top issue facing the country, the war is becoming a less defining issue among Democrats nationally, and it has moved to the back of the stage in the rush of campaign rallies, town hall meetings and speeches that are bringing the caucus competition to an end. Instead, candidates are being asked about, and are increasingly talking about, the mortgage crisis, rising gas costs, health care, immigration, the environment and taxes. […]
Part of the shift appears to stem from the reduction in violence in Iraq after President Bush’s decision to send more troops there last year. Mrs. Clinton, who once faced intense opposition from her party’s left over her vote to authorize the war, now is rarely pressed on it, though Democrats say it continues be a drag on her in this state. Senator John McCain, a strong proponent of increased troop levels, is off of the defensive and now positions himself as having been prescient about what would work to quell the violence.
“You see much more concern about the economy,” said Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist. “You see much more concern about health care. When we started it was principally concern about the war, and now it’s a mix of war, the economy and health care.”
You see, even if Iraq is still the “top issue” it doesn’t really matter all that much. Because Adam Nagourney, the NYT’s superstar political reporter, having surveyed the political scene in Iowa and spoken to all the truly important people, has determined that Americans have decided that Iraq is yesterday’s news, good for wrapping dead fish with perhaps, or lining your bird cage, but not much else. And when has Adam Nagourney, master wordsmith and keen political observer that he is, ever been wrong about the Presidential race before? Why, didn’t he get it right when he said Gore was known for “re-inventing himself” with every swing of the public opinion polls? And wasn’t his analysis dead on when he reported that John Edwards was known as the “Breck Girl” and John Kerry “looked” French? Or when he reported in late August of 2002 that President Bush was “a patient man” who would make the decision to go to war against Iraq only after “careful deliberation” and was in no hurry to attack Iraq?
So when Nagourney reports that Iraq is not an issue in the Democratic presidential race anymore, after his deep and probing conversations with knowledgeable people like Mark Penn, Clinton’s hack-in-chief strategist, we can be fairly certain he’s got his finger firmly placed on the pulse of America’s voters. No doubt Senator Clinton’s record on Iraq had little, if anything, to do with her coming in third last night in the Iowa caucuses.
Thus, all things considered, and with Nagourney’s renowned track record of getting to the essential truth of the matter when it comes to reporting a story, I think it is safe to say that he is absolutely right when he concludes that American voters really could care less about this garbage misguided analysis published by Newsweek:
The foreign policy issue already framing the 2008 presidential election is the war in Iraq. The war’s growing unpopularity among Americans, coupled with nightly images of civilian and soldier casualties, will only add to the candidates’ need to craft a plan to win the war. On this issue, the candidates are divided between supporting the president’s strategy to surge more troops into central Iraq versus establishing a timetable, complete with benchmarks, to eventually pull out U.S. forces and possibly withhold funding for the war effort. Further, there are sharp philosophical divisions among the candidates and their parties over whether Iraq symbolizes the central front in the larger war on terrorism, rather than an isolated civil war between sectarian factions with a long history of mutual animosity.
After all, when Adam Nagourney speaks, people listen. Okay, maybe not people like you and I, but since when have we ever counted in American politics, anyway?