Afghanistan Public Opinion Disconnect

by: Chris Bowers

Sun Oct 11, 2009 at 17:45

According to the latest CBS poll on Afghanistan (PDF, page 3), whether or not you a voter approves of President Obama's handling of Afghanistan has as much to do with partisan self-identification as with President Obama's actual policies in the country.

Democrats Obama Performance Troop Levels

Approve / Increase 54% 27%

Disapprove / Decrease 27% 52%
By a 2-1 margin, self-identified approve of President Obama's handling of Afghanistan, even though twice as many Democrats favor decreasing troop levels there as favor increasing troop levels.

Republicans Obama Performance Troop Levels

Approve / Increase 20% 57%

Disapprove / Decrease 58% 16%
President Obama has a net approval rating of negative 38% among self-identified Republicans in Afghanistan, However, three and a half times as many Republicans think troop levels in Afghanistan should be increased rather than decreased.

This partisan discrepancy can probably be explained by Afghanistan being low on the list of national priorities right now. In the same CBS poll, only 3% of Americans cited Afghanistan as the top national priority. As such, many Americans are relying on their partisan preference to determine their approval or disapproval of President Obama on Afghanistan, rather than their personal views on how many troops we should have in that country. When an issue is not high on your list of national priorities, it is a safe bet that a given voter less likely even be aware of a difference with his or her party leadership, and more likely to let a difference s/he does notice slide.

There are possible readings of these numbers which are a lot less generous to the electorate, but I won't go there in this article. As tempting as a "stupid electorate" conclusion is from numbers like these, in my experience it is best to withhold such conclusions until there are no other possibilities.

Chris Bowers :: Afghanistan Public Opinion Disconnect

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Afghanistan Public Opinion Disconnect | 5 comments

Possibilities (4.00 / 1)

There are plenty of potentially good reasons for this seeming disconnect. There is much more to Afghanistan then troop levels, so one can oppose one part of a policy and still think the leader is doing well, overall. Obama has a general who recently talked on the importance of humility in all our actions there, for example. Obama's use of drones along the AfPak boarder also have no direct relationship to troop level. Democrats could simply be more pro-drone than Republicans.

It is possible this is a very detailed, well thought out analysis by the American people.

Or, they are kinda stupid and don't know what they are talking about.

by: Mark Matson @ Sun Oct 11, 2009 at 17:02:24 PM CDT

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The main reason (4.00 / 1)

is probably because Afghanistan is not a top issue to most people. We see disconnects like this all the time when issues rank low in importance.

by: DTOzone @ Sun Oct 11, 2009 at 18:26:54 PM CDT

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Nice theory (0.00 / 0)

I would add as well that Obama has mostly framed the Afghan war in terms of eliminating Al Qaeda, so it makes sense that people think of it mostly as an Afpak border conflict with drones presumably taking care of the job. If Obama goes for the troop increase, expect a speech that reframes the war in terms of establishing a democracy and providing security for civilians. We'll see what happens to the numbers then.

The numbers for Republicans are more easily explained. They hate Obama and will disapprove of anything he does, and they love war and approve anything that increases it. They also have more at stake politically in seeing Afghanistan succeed since they started the war.

by: frankenheimer @ Sun Oct 11, 2009 at 20:46:29 PM CDT

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