Thanks to Washington Post blogger Dan
Froomkin for tipping me off to this exchange from yesterday's press
briefing by presidential press secretary Tony Snow that leads indirectly to
some fundamental questions regarding public opinion and the Iraq War:
Q Tony, you mentioned the polls, and talked about
the Republican support. All the polls also show that big majorities of the
American public do not support the war. Have you heard the President talk about
how difficult it is to fight a war or prosecute a war without the public's
support?MR. SNOW: The President understands the importance
of public support. What's also interesting is that you see numbers coming up again on, do you think we're winning or
do you think -- for instance, a pretty
strong majority now, when asked, do you think we're losing, say no. That's
an important data point. When it talks about, would you like the Americans to
succeed, the answer is yes. So you always have mixed feelings.[Emphasis
added]
Is Snow right? Have the numbers really "come up" that much? Snow
is presumably thinking about two nearly identical results asked on two recently
released national polls:
- CNN/ORC(5/4-6, n=1,208 adults): "Do you think that the U.S.war in Iraqis lost, or don't you think so?"
41% lost
55% don't think so
4% don't know
- Quinnipiac(4/25-5/1, n=1,166 registered voters): "Do you think that the U.S. war in Iraq is lost, or don't youthink so?"
41% lost
49 don't think so
11% unsure
Putting aside a quibble about whether those results amount
to a "strong majority," they certainly show more Americans rejecting than
accepting the notion that the war "is lost." The pollsters asked these questions
after Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid told
reporters on April 19, "I believe ... that this war is lost, and this
surge is not accomplishing anything."
As first glance, these new results certainly seem like a big
change from a question traced by the ABC News/Washington Post poll:
"All told, do you think the United States
is winning or losing the war in Iraq?"
As recently as January, a nearly two-to-one margin (57% to 29%) believed the
U.S was "losing," a five point increase in the "losing" percentage since
December:
So have opinions on the war changed really that much in just
a few months? I doubt it. The more likely explanation is that, in the context
of the Iraq War, some Americans are interpreting the "losing" and "is lost"
very differently.
Consider the most recent results of questions tracked by the
Pew Research Center
and CBS News:
- Pew ResearchCenter (4/18-22, n=1,508 adults): "How is the U.S. Military effortgoing in Iraq?"
7% very well
31% fairly well
34% not too well
25% not well at all
3% don't know
- CBS News(4/9-12, n=994 adults): "How would you say things are going for the U.S. in its efforts to bring stability andorder to Iraq?Would you say things are going very well, somewhat well, somewhat badly,or very badly?"
2% very well
29% somewhat well
30% somewhat badly
36% very badly
3% unsure
So both organizations, in surveys conducted just before and
just after Reid's remarks, show the same general pessimism reflected in the January
ABC/Washington Post "is losing"
results. By roughly two-to-one margins, Americans say the War effort is going
"badly" or "not well."
More important, while both CBS and Pew show a slight up-tick
(roughly six percentage points) in March and April as compared to December
through February, the long term trend has been to greater pessimism. And the
current overall results essentially match the reading of the January ABC/Post
poll about the direction of the war. The following chart shows the results for
the Pew survey. The CBS trend data (available via Polling Report) shows the same pattern.
Again, my hunch is that Americans interpret the words "is
lost" very differently from "is losing," though the bigger issue is whether
this semantic distinction has political consequences. A lot of conservative
commentators seem to think so, given their reaction to Reid's
remarks. Tony Snow is likely right that most Americans want our military to
succeed in Iraq.
However, if the seemingly contradictory results cited above are about a subset
of American who believe that the war is not winnable yet perhaps not yet
completely "lost," then we have a distinction without much difference.
Consider, for example the recent NBC/Wall Street Journal
Poll (4/20-23, n=1,004 adults) that reported 55% saying it is "not possible" to
achieve the U.S. goal of
"achieving victory in Iraq."
Now recall that academics that have studied public support for wars past and
present - including one that has been advising the Bush White House - believe
that "prospective evaluations of mission success" are the key to continuing
support for the Iraq War.
All of this suggests some things my media pollster colleagues
might want to test on future surveys. First, the issue of whether my hunch is
right regarding the meaning of "losing" vs. "is lost." A survey could confirm
this easily enough with an experiment that divides the sample randomly for a
side-by-side test of two questions:
- Do youthink that the U.S. warin Iraqis lost, or don't you think so?
- Do youthink the United Statesis winning or losing the war in Iraq?
It might also be useful to try to get individual respondents
to decide whether "lost" or "is losing" better describes their opinion. In
other words, ask if they believe the U.S.
"has won," "is winning," "is losing" or "has lost" the Iraq war. Do those who believe the U.S. "is
losing" in Iraq but has not yet "lost" see any hope of winning in the future?
UPDATE: Professor Franklin sends along a slightly improved version of my "how are things going" chart of Pew Research Center data that adds the very similar results from CBS News and plots a smoothed regression line through the points. Click the image below for the easier-to-read full size version.