Poll Shows Republicans Don't Trust Bush

Huffington Post
Rick Jacobs
Poll Shows Republicans Don't Trust Bush

With all of the sturm and drang (that's Joe Lieberman talk for hand wringing) over Iraq as some sort of twisted Achilles heel for the Democrats, we now have news that even Republicans don't trust their own party to tell them the truth about Iraq or to ask the right questions about it.

In a poll conducted 2-3 August by Courage Campaign and MyDD.com following up on research we did last month to find out just why Francine Busby lost in the 50th Congressional District in California, we learned the following.

1. 63% of Republican voters believe that Bush has made some or a lot of mistaks in Iraq and fully 24% believe he has made "a lot of mistakes" in Iraq . (Makes you kind of wonder who the rest are.)

2. One third of Republicans think Bush has not told the truth about Iraq and should be held accountable for what he has done there.

3. Interestingly, nearly a half (48%) believes that the Democratic Party will hold Bush accountable for what he has done in Iraq, versus only 19% who believe that the Republicans will do so.

National polls continue to show that the American people have lost patience with President Bush's occupation of Iraq. This poll, focused on one single district where Republican registration exceeds Democratic registration by fourteen points, puts a very fine point on the "message question" that plagues many Democrats and that brought down Joe Lieberman. Quite simply, the people again lead the politicians. While incumbents distance themselves from a president whom they did not have the courage to question, their own party loyalists stand up first for patriotism rather than partisanship.

Jim Webb, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Virginia, a man who understands first hand better than anyone in the Bush White House when and how to use the military for national defense, puts it best: "How long does the president plan to continue the occupation of Iraq?" So far, neither his opponent George Allen nor the president nor any of the party in power has figured out how to answer that question.

In the meantime, the good people of San Diego County set the trend, telling us that they want answers. The current one party regime has neither the capacity nor the confidence of the American people to answer those questions. If the Republicans and Independents of a "red" county think this way, it's time for the Democrats to lead this way.