Ron
2004-08-28 04:31:27 UTC
Sharp, new focus for U.S. election
Brian Knowlton/IHT IHT
Thursday, August 19, 2004
WASHINGTON For the first time in decades, foreign affairs and national security issues are
emerging in the final months of the U.S. presidential campaign as greater concerns among
American voters than economic matters, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
Not since 1972, during the Vietnam War, have security and foreign affairs concerns
dominated at this point in a campaign, the Pew Research Center said in the report.
The survey suggests that public views on Iraq, and the administration's success or failure
in overcoming violent opposition there in coming months, could decisively influence the
election between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, said the Pew director,
Andrew Kohut. The study also found that Americans' views on Iraq and other foreign policy
issues had diverged to a historically unusual level - the foreign policy opinions of
Republicans and Democrats had been much closer in the past- reaffirming the notion that
the candidates would have to continue scrapping through to Election Day for votes among
small numbers of undecided voters.
For instance, Republican support for the doctrine espoused by Bush that pre-emptive war is
justifiable against potential enemies has grown, to 88 percent from 79 percent last year,
while Democratic support for it has fallen, to 44 percent from 58 percent.
Nearly the same number of Americans said they favored a "cautious" foreign policy as a
"decisive" one.
"The debate about whether it is better to be loved or feared is shaping up as a major
issue," said Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, which
collaborated on the Pew study.
Four in 10 Americans now cite international and defense issues as the most important
problems confronting the country, the survey found. Only one in four mentioned economic
concerns.
The Pew Center, relying partly on data from past Gallup polls, said that security and
foreign affairs issues dominated from World War II until 1972.
But in 1976, a year after the fall of Saigon, economic issues took over. That trend peaked
in 1992, when the candidate Bill Clinton instructed campaign aides that "It's the economy,
stupid." That year, voters surveyed by Gallup cited economic concerns 18 times as often as
foreign and security matters.
The focus on foreign and security issues is, if anything, growing as the campaign
progresses, the Pew report said.
The poll was conducted by phone from July 8 to 18 among 2,009 Americans. Smaller up
samplings followed in early August. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.
The lessons of the survey offer each camp some encouragement, said Walter Mead of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
"Both pro- and anti-Bush voters agree that foreign policy is very important," he said. But
while Americans give Bush higher marks on the war on terror, "Kerry has a lead when you
ask which is better on foreign policy," Mead said.
Pew and other polls show that Kerry has an advantage on the economy. But on the question
of who would do a better job of handling Iraq, the two men are tied, the poll found.
"Supporters of both candidates can find both encouragement and grounds for concern in the
study," Mead said. If the troubles in Iraq have fueled a rising preoccupation with foreign
affairs, recent economic improvement could be a reason for the relative decline in
Americans' concerns on that front. Kerry has repeatedly criticized Bush for the loss of
millions of American jobs since 2000, and said that as president he would provide
incentives for businesses to keep jobs at home; the president has pointed to the creation,
in recent months, of hundreds of thousands of jobs and said his tax cuts will create more.
Other poll findings also held mixed blessings for the Bush and Kerry campaigns: Nearly 6
respondents in 10 faulted the administration as being too quick to use force in Iraq, and
just over half said they disapproved of the way Bush was handling matters there. Just over
4 in 10 approved of his course on Iraq. Those surveyed were deeply concerned with the loss
of international respect for the United States. Two-thirds said the country was less
respected now, and among opponents of the Iraq war, the level approached 9 in 10. More
Americans than in any previous Pew survey, 45 percent, said the United States plays a more
important role as world leader than it did a decade earlier. Yet, a declining number - 38
percent, down from 45 percent in October 2001 - supported the idea that the United States
should be the single dominant world power.
At the same time, the threat of terror continues to mark public attitudes on the use of
force and the extent of national protection measures, as shown by support for pre-emption.
While 3 in 10 Americans said that the U.S. government had gone too far in restricting
civil liberties as part of moves meant to fight terrorism, 5 in 10 expressed concern that
it had not done enough to protect the country.
Bush has frequently asserted that the antiterrorism laws of the Patriot Act are
justifiably tough, despite criticisms that they allow intrusions on privacy.
"There are a lot of places in the poll where you can see that the shock of Sept. 11 is
just a central concern for the American public," Mead said.
One of these apparently was the belief among a substantial minority of respondents, 43
percent, that torture can sometimes be justified by circumstances, a number that might
seem surprising after the public shock over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Carroll Doherty of the Pew Center said the public saw no contradiction in wanting both
stronger relations with allies and tougher measures against terror. "They want both," he
said.
The survey found strong partisan disagreements on several foreign policy issues.
Half of Democrats and nearly as many independents said that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
might have been motivated partly by U.S. wrongdoings in dealing with other countries. But
three in four Republicans rejected that view, up even from the 65 percent who said so in
late September 2001.
International Herald Tribune
Copyright © 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Brian Knowlton/IHT IHT
Thursday, August 19, 2004
WASHINGTON For the first time in decades, foreign affairs and national security issues are
emerging in the final months of the U.S. presidential campaign as greater concerns among
American voters than economic matters, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
Not since 1972, during the Vietnam War, have security and foreign affairs concerns
dominated at this point in a campaign, the Pew Research Center said in the report.
The survey suggests that public views on Iraq, and the administration's success or failure
in overcoming violent opposition there in coming months, could decisively influence the
election between President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, said the Pew director,
Andrew Kohut. The study also found that Americans' views on Iraq and other foreign policy
issues had diverged to a historically unusual level - the foreign policy opinions of
Republicans and Democrats had been much closer in the past- reaffirming the notion that
the candidates would have to continue scrapping through to Election Day for votes among
small numbers of undecided voters.
For instance, Republican support for the doctrine espoused by Bush that pre-emptive war is
justifiable against potential enemies has grown, to 88 percent from 79 percent last year,
while Democratic support for it has fallen, to 44 percent from 58 percent.
Nearly the same number of Americans said they favored a "cautious" foreign policy as a
"decisive" one.
"The debate about whether it is better to be loved or feared is shaping up as a major
issue," said Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, which
collaborated on the Pew study.
Four in 10 Americans now cite international and defense issues as the most important
problems confronting the country, the survey found. Only one in four mentioned economic
concerns.
The Pew Center, relying partly on data from past Gallup polls, said that security and
foreign affairs issues dominated from World War II until 1972.
But in 1976, a year after the fall of Saigon, economic issues took over. That trend peaked
in 1992, when the candidate Bill Clinton instructed campaign aides that "It's the economy,
stupid." That year, voters surveyed by Gallup cited economic concerns 18 times as often as
foreign and security matters.
The focus on foreign and security issues is, if anything, growing as the campaign
progresses, the Pew report said.
The poll was conducted by phone from July 8 to 18 among 2,009 Americans. Smaller up
samplings followed in early August. The margin of error was 2.5 percentage points.
The lessons of the survey offer each camp some encouragement, said Walter Mead of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
"Both pro- and anti-Bush voters agree that foreign policy is very important," he said. But
while Americans give Bush higher marks on the war on terror, "Kerry has a lead when you
ask which is better on foreign policy," Mead said.
Pew and other polls show that Kerry has an advantage on the economy. But on the question
of who would do a better job of handling Iraq, the two men are tied, the poll found.
"Supporters of both candidates can find both encouragement and grounds for concern in the
study," Mead said. If the troubles in Iraq have fueled a rising preoccupation with foreign
affairs, recent economic improvement could be a reason for the relative decline in
Americans' concerns on that front. Kerry has repeatedly criticized Bush for the loss of
millions of American jobs since 2000, and said that as president he would provide
incentives for businesses to keep jobs at home; the president has pointed to the creation,
in recent months, of hundreds of thousands of jobs and said his tax cuts will create more.
Other poll findings also held mixed blessings for the Bush and Kerry campaigns: Nearly 6
respondents in 10 faulted the administration as being too quick to use force in Iraq, and
just over half said they disapproved of the way Bush was handling matters there. Just over
4 in 10 approved of his course on Iraq. Those surveyed were deeply concerned with the loss
of international respect for the United States. Two-thirds said the country was less
respected now, and among opponents of the Iraq war, the level approached 9 in 10. More
Americans than in any previous Pew survey, 45 percent, said the United States plays a more
important role as world leader than it did a decade earlier. Yet, a declining number - 38
percent, down from 45 percent in October 2001 - supported the idea that the United States
should be the single dominant world power.
At the same time, the threat of terror continues to mark public attitudes on the use of
force and the extent of national protection measures, as shown by support for pre-emption.
While 3 in 10 Americans said that the U.S. government had gone too far in restricting
civil liberties as part of moves meant to fight terrorism, 5 in 10 expressed concern that
it had not done enough to protect the country.
Bush has frequently asserted that the antiterrorism laws of the Patriot Act are
justifiably tough, despite criticisms that they allow intrusions on privacy.
"There are a lot of places in the poll where you can see that the shock of Sept. 11 is
just a central concern for the American public," Mead said.
One of these apparently was the belief among a substantial minority of respondents, 43
percent, that torture can sometimes be justified by circumstances, a number that might
seem surprising after the public shock over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Carroll Doherty of the Pew Center said the public saw no contradiction in wanting both
stronger relations with allies and tougher measures against terror. "They want both," he
said.
The survey found strong partisan disagreements on several foreign policy issues.
Half of Democrats and nearly as many independents said that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
might have been motivated partly by U.S. wrongdoings in dealing with other countries. But
three in four Republicans rejected that view, up even from the 65 percent who said so in
late September 2001.
International Herald Tribune
Copyright © 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com