Iraq the Vote

Legacy blog posts Polls in the News

A small world story:   On the front page of today’s Washington Post, Peter Baker and Dan Balz write about the influence of "an extensive study of public opinion" in guiding the Bush Administration strategy for support for the Iraq war:

The White House recently brought onto its staff one of the nation’s top academic experts on public opinion during wartime, whose studies are now helping Bush craft his message two years into a war with no easy end in sight. Behind the president’s speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won.

MP had two immediate reactions.  First, that this story would make a perfect MP topic, focusing as it does on the nexus between public opinion and political strategy.  Second, though MP fancies himself as reasonably familiar with the "top academic experts in public opinion," he had never heard of Peter Feaver and Christopher Gelpi, the two Duke University political scientists Balz wrote about.   Or so he thought.

But then MP did a bit of searching and discovered that Feaver and Gelpi have a third author on their paper, a Duke PhD candidate named Jason Reifler who will soon join the faculty of Loyola University in Chicago. 

The small world part:  Jason Reifler used to work for MP.  Jason was a guest at MP’s wedding.  In fact, Jason sent an early version of their research to MP back in the blur that was October, something that, sadly, MP never got around to reading.

Doh!

So starting this afternoon, MP will correct that mistake and review the voluminous work of Gelpi, Reifler and Feaver.  For now, few quick things that will interest MP’s readers:

First, here are links to PDF versions of the two papers the authors have put on their websites:

Second, for those who would rather not wade through 100+ pages of academic research, here is the money quote from the "Iraq the Vote" paper:

We argue that the willingness of the public to pay the costs of war and to reelect incumbent Presidents during wartime are dependent on the interaction of two attitudes – one retrospective and one prospective. In particular, we show that retrospective evaluations of whether President Bush "did the right thing" in attacking Iraq and prospective judgments about whether the U.S. will ultimately be successful in Iraq are two critical attitudes for understanding how foreign policy judgments affect vote choice and one’s tolerance for casualties. Further, we show that the retrospective judgments serve as a more powerful predictor for vote choice, while the prospective evaluations of mission success better predict continued support for the war in Iraq. These claims are consistent with the broader literature on how foreign policy influences voting behavior, and the literature that examines the public’s response to war and casualties. However, we also show that these retrospective and prospective judgments are interactive, and that a person’s attitude on one conditions the effect of the other. This interaction operates on "political" support (vote choice) as well as mission" support (casualty tolerance).

Third, the full text of the two key questions Gelpi, Feaver and Reifler use in their analysis:

We would like to know whether you think President Bush did the right thing by using military force against Iraq. Would you say that you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove or strongly disapprove of his decision?

Regardless of whether you think that the President did the right thing, would you say that the U.S. is very likely succeed in Iraq, somewhat likely to succeed, not very likely to succeed, or not at all likely to succeed?

Finally, this thought:   Several public pollsters have asked variations of the question about whether the US "did the right thing" in attacking Iraq.  However, MP has yet to find a public polls that track prospective judgments about the likelihood of prevailing in Iraq.   Perhaps he has overlooked something obvious, but MP hopes the Baker & Balz article will prompt a public pollster or two to add such an item to their surveys and provide their own independent assessments of the Gelpi-Feaver-Reifler thesis.

More later . . .

UPDATE:  CBS takes up the challenge

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.