One problem with the Presidential political season starting so early, in this case two years before the election, is that the landscape can change dramatically. Democrats who started out with hard anti-war positions when things looked bad in Iraq are now having to deal with a new reality
For the first time in a long time, nearly half of Americans express positive opinions about the situation in Iraq. A growing number says the U.S. war effort is going well, while greater percentages also believe the United States is making progress in reducing the number of Iraqi casualties, defeating the insurgents and preventing a civil war in Iraq.
Roughly half of the public (48%) believes the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going very or fairly well. Judgments about the overall situation in Iraq have been improving steadily since the summer. As recently as June, only about a third of Americans (34%) said things were going well in Iraq.
The landscape at the beginning also had Bush approval ratings low, and the newly elected Democratic Congress high. But the that's changed as well
Gallup's latest poll finds only one in five Americans approving of the job Congress is doing at this time. The public's rating of Congress had shown slight improvements in recent months, but the current rating is down again and is among the lowest that Gallup has ever measured dating back to 1974.
And the support for the anti-American meme most likely to be promoted by the Hard Left Wing of the Democratic Party represented by the "netroots" folks is also very soft from a general election perspective
Why doesn't Hollywood cut to the chase the next time it wants to insult the public with a new war-on-terror film and just call it "Bombs Away"? As movies depicting U.S. troops as bad guys and terrorists as sensitive, misunderstood souls continue to crank out, the industry needs to take its puny box office returns as a wake-up call from the public.
Despite top star billings, big-foot directors, the best publicity money can buy and critical acclaim, the public just isn't biting. The problem is the content.
"Redacted," gave us the Christmasy theme of Iraqi rape starring U.S. troops as rapists. It drew just $10,039 over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo, and $34,000 at its open.
Meanwhile "Rendition," which showed terrorists as pensive souls, bombed too. "A Mighty Heart," depicting terrorists' war on the West as "understandable," was a dud. "Syriana," portraying U.S. intelligence officers as crooks in bed with Big Oil, also fared poorly. "Lions For Lambs," a long anti-war monologue, bored people out of the Cineplex.
Critics say the lousy returns show the public is fatigued with the war. But name one film supportive of the U.S. war in Iraq, making heroes of the war's real heroes, such as our troops or even Iraq's democrats. Name one that portrays al-Qaida terrorists as the cold-blooded Islamofascist killers they really are.
The public isn't sated on good Iraq films; in reality, it's famished.
There is little support for failure in Iraq and there is little support for the Democratic leadership. The issues for the 2008 election will likely be less about Iraq than about Security, Illegal Immigration, and Health Care. And because of this, Democrats are attempting to retool their message
The focus of the presidential campaign, especially on the Democratic side, has broadened as well. Even antiwar groups that once denied that security has gotten better have recalibrated their arguments to focus on the failed efforts to reach political conciliation among Iraqi factions or the risk of war with Iran. The shift has strategists in both parties reevaluating their assumptions about how the final year of the Bush presidency and the election to succeed him will play out.
But the question is, can Democrats make the public forget that they advocated defeat? That they wanted to throw in the hat and leave the battlefield to al Qaida and the inevitable slaughter of the Iraqis who supported us and believed we would help them establish a government responsible to the people?
That they advocated for a Saigon scenario?
What's worse for the Democratic slate is if they retool their message too much, how people be able to to take seriously their new message?