by Frank James
Gallup has a new poll out today in which about a third of those surveyed said the Iraq War would be “extremely important” for them as an issue in the 2008 presidential elections.
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Adding up all those surveyed in the poll who said the war would be “extremely,” “very” or “somewhat” important gets you to 92 percent of the poll’s respondents.
One of the difficulties in a poll like this is knowing how someone makes the distinction between “extremely” and “very” important since the differences between those two positions seem very nuanced.
Still, it was a little surprising to see that only a third said the war was extremely important since so much of the reporting in the past year has indicated that the war is increasingly THE issue for voters. Certainly, exit polling after last year’s mid-term elections suggested as much.
In any event, the pollsters also conducted a trial heat between Sen. Hillary Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Democratic and Republican frontrunners, respectively, in national polls.
Not surprisingly, Clinton beats Giuliani 52 to 45 percent among those respondents who said the Iraq War was “extremely important.”
The candidates tied among respondents who said the war would be a “very important” issue in their vote. Giuliani won among those surveyed who said war would be somewhat or not important in their 2008 vote.