Minnesota sours on Iraq

09/27/2006

42 percent now say the war was a bad idea, according to poll, and the issue is looming large in congressional elections

BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER and DANIELLE CABOT
Pioneer Press

Minnesotans have drastically altered their views on the war in Iraq, and this year’s congressional election is shaping up to be a referendum on it.

In spring 2003, shortly after a U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, only 18 percent of those polled said it was wrong to fight the war.

But in a recent Pioneer Press-Minnesota Public Radio poll, 42 percent said fighting the war was wrong.

Meanwhile, 14 percent said fighting the war was right, and 41 percent said fighting the war was right but that the Bush administration wasn’t prepared for its aftermath.

Declining support for the war has affected President Bush’s popularity. And Minnesota’s congressional candidates’ fate on Election Day may depend on their views on the war.

On Iraq, voters are listening.

About 1 in 5 of those polled said Iraq was the most important issue in the U.S. Senate race. Democrat Amy Klobuchar, Republican Mark Kennedy and the Independence Party’s Robert Fitzgerald are the candidates in that race.

Registered voters who took part in the statewide poll said they are concerned there hasn’t been, and still isn’t, an adequate plan for Iraq.

Todd Bradshaw, 42, of Oakdale said the war is a “lose-lose situation.”

Veteran Charles Aguirre, 72, of St. Paul supported the war in 2003, but now it has his support “only because the troops are there.”

That may be why Klobuchar is leading Kennedy in all published polls.

Klobuchar, the Hennepin County attorney, said she has long opposed the war and believes the American people were misled about the reasons for it and the fate of the mission. But like many candidates for federal office, she stops short of calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops. Instead, she has said she wants to see a clear plan to bring them home.

More than half of Minnesotans want a timetable for withdrawal, according to the poll. Voters who identified themselves as Democrats and independents were more likely to say they wanted a schedule established than were Republican voters, according to the poll.

Republican candidates are also less likely to commit to a timetable.

Kennedy, who currently represents Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, said the troops should only come home once the war on terror is won. He voted to authorize the Iraq war and said his support for it has not changed.

“The central challenge before our generation is whether we face and defeat the terrorist threat that confronts us, just as prior generations of Americans defeated communism and fascism, or whether by accepting defeat in Iraq, we embolden radical jihadists,” he said. “There is no more important issue or bigger difference in this race.”

Fitzgerald supports an immediate withdrawal of troops.

“The goal should have always been on ensuring the safety and security of Iraqi civilians. That is how you win hearts and minds. There was an opportunity to do that last year. The opportunity has passed. Now, we need to safely and successfully remove our troops from Iraq,” he said.

Most Democratic and Independence Party candidates for House seats said they didn’t believe it was right to send troops to Iraq.

U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, a Democrat representing the 7th District, voted for the 2003 war resolution and said his position has changed. The administration “made a mess of it,” he said.

“There is clearly a need for a new direction and a clear strategy for stabilizing Iraq and bringing our troops home. More of the same ‘stay the course’ approach in the face of mounting evidence that indicates it is not working is simply not rational,” Peterson said.

U.S. Rep. John Kline, who is fending off a 2nd District challenge from anti-war Democrat Coleen Rowley, said he has changed his views on tactics but not the war itself. The fight in Iraq is central to the war against terror, said Kline, a former Marine.

While more than 1 in 6 voters polled said they disapproved of the way Bush has handled the Iraq war, they were split on whether they approve of the job he has done in handling homeland security and terrorism.

Still, not everyone in Minnesota is convinced the Iraqi war and terrorism are linked.

“Bush keeps pounding the media with Iraq and terrorism and there has been absolutely no connection between those two things,” said Judy Whitlock, a 58-year-old St. Cloud Democrat who answered the poll questions.

Democratic candidates are less likely to link terrorism and the war but still expressed some support for staying in Iraq.

Tim Walz, a Democrat running for the 1st District House seat, said the United States should rebuild Iraqi infrastructure to pre-war levels and work with allied forces on security.

“If the evidence suggests that we cannot achieve these milestones, then we owe it to our troops to bring them all home immediately,” said Walz, a former Army National Guard member who was stationed in Italy in support of the war in Afghanistan. He is campaigning to unseat Republican Rep. Gil Gutknecht.

Gutknecht, once considered a strong supporter of the war, made national news when he was openly critical of the situation in Iraq after a trip there this summer.

“Things in Baghdad were much worse than we were led to believe,” he said in an interview then. He said the United States should reduce the number of Americans working on security issues in Iraq.

Removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq was right, but now tactics need to change and some troops should soon be sent home, he said.

Such nuances may not help Republicans win races. More than 60 percent of voters in the poll said that given the costs and benefits, the Iraq war was not worth fighting.

That sentiment was reflected in approval of Bush’s handling of the war: 63 percent of voters disapproved of it while 26 percent approved.

However, on the question of Bush’s handling of homeland security and the war on terrorism, the president fared better: 47 percent of voters approved of it while 45 percent disapproved.

But overall the president’s job approval ratings have slid since May 2003, after victory was declared in Iraq.

A Pioneer Press-MPR poll then found 61 percent of Minnesotans rated Bush’s job performance as excellent or good, compared with 38 percent who called it fair or poor.

But the most recent poll found that only 30 percent of voters now rate the president’s job performance as excellent or good while 70 percent call it fair or poor.

Coming Thursday: Poll results on gas prices and gay marriage.

About the poll

This poll of registered Minnesota voters was conducted for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio from Sept. 18 through Sept. 20. The polling was done by telephone by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C.

The survey included 625 Minnesotans chosen through a random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. Quotas were assigned to reflect voter turnout by county.

The margin of error is 4 percentage points.