Those Who Voted on Iraq Voted for Obama
OK, with the caveat that exit polling is voodoo and probably reflective of a Democratic bias, there’s something interesting in the guts of CNN’s exit poll from Tuesday.
Take a look at what respondents said was the most important issue influencing their vote. More than 63 percent said the economy, unsurprisingly.
But the next-most important issue is the Iraq war — an issue that McCain staked his candidacy on owning. Only 10 percent considered the war to be of paramount importance, but of that 10 percent, a decisive 59 percent voted for Obama, while only 39 percent voted for McCain. That would suggest that those who voted for Obama didn’t vote for him in spite of his advocacy of withdrawal, but because of it.
And while there’s hardly a scientific sample of Iraqi opinion on Obama, McClatchy has this man-on-the-street reaction:
“„“It gives us hope that this will open a door for us as a people, a door towards relief,” said Faisal al Khazraji, 69, as he sat in a cafe on Rasheed Street. The local council member in Baghdad, who’d recently survived a magnetic bomb attached to his car, received a flurry of text messages and phone calls of congratulations on Wednesday morning. “The elected American president is the president of Iraq, and I hope he will make his promises true about withdrawing from Iraq,” Khazraji said.
