Poll Finds Voters Split on Candidates' Iraq-Pullout Positions

washington post ^ | 7/15/2008 | Jonathan Weisman and Jon Cohen

[tobyhill]

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the country split down the middle between those backing Sen. Barack Obama's 16-month timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and those agreeing with Sen. John McCain's position that events, not timetables, should dictate when forces come home.

Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, will deliver what his campaign is billing as a "major address" on Iraq today in Washington, part of an effort to convince voters that he could serve effectively as commander in chief. The public is also evenly divided on that question, with 48 percent saying he would be an effective leader of the military and 48 percent saying he would not.

[DGHoodini]

All he is proving is that he would be a national shame as an incompetent Coward in Chief.

[sam_paine]

with 48 percent saying [Obama] would be an effective leader of the military and 48 percent saying he would not.

Ugh. You were right that we have big problems. 52% are clueless or worse.

[tobyhill]

Just a black version of Jimmy Carter.

[SevenMinusOne]

If this is the best the MSM can do with their silly weighted polls (after 5 straight years of running down the war in Iraq/WOT).....They have lost.

Reality is, the majority of the American public are seeing victory....They are seeing success.....the constant MSM spin and lies is being washed out by reality......slowly but surely...

This poll bodes very badly for Obama (for starters) and shows history is already not being kind to those who were against victory in Iraq....

[tbpiper]

after 5 straight years of running down the war in Iraq/WOT

If they had gotten behind the effort instead of running a 5th column offense, the war might have been over by now and a lot of good American soldiers would be alive. The MSM and democrats have a lot of innocent blood on their hands.

[avacado]

African Americans oversampled on a random sample of adults, i.e., not likely voters or registerd voters. This poll is meaningless in regards to the coming election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/postpoll_071408.html

Washington Post-ABC News Poll

This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by 
telephone July 10-13, 2008, among a random national sample 
of 1,119 adults, including additional interviews with 
randomly selected African Americans, for a total of 209 
black respondents. The additional interviews (commonly 
referred to as an "oversample") were completed to ensure 
there were enough African American respondents for separate 
analysis; the group was not over-represented in the reported
results from the full sample. The results from the full 
survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 
three percentage points. Sampling, data collection and 
tabulation by TNS of Horsham, Pa.