“The first thing we have to gauge is the reaction of the American people tonight and tomorrow,” Senator Jack Reed, the Democrats’ point person on the war in Iraq, said yesterday.
The reaction of the American people towards the war remains unchanged. They opposed it before Bush’s speech and they still oppose it after. Seventy percent of Americans now disagree with deploying more troops, according to an AP-Ipsos poll released this morning.
In a story today the New York Times gauged the reaction of voters in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a traditionally Republican suburb outside of Philadelphia that voted for Democrat and Iraq war vet Patrick Murphy for Congress in ’06.
A 64-year-old Republican barber and Vietnam vet says of President Bush: “The guy keeps digging us deeper and deeper into this mess, why not start pulling us out now?”
A Democrat whose son is stationed in Cyprus implores Congress to block Bush’s escalation. “It’s not too late for impeachment,” adds one of her house guests.
Sam Graham-Felsen and I visited Bucks County in the days before the election and filed this in-depth video report, “The ‘Burbs Go Blue.”
Republicans are currently disputing the notion that the midterm elections represented a referendum on Iraq. But when we asked voters in Bucks County, including many Republicans, what they wanted Democrats to do if elected, they repeated over and over, “They’ve got to get us out of Iraq.”
Sending more troops, it’s fair to say, was the last thing voters wanted.
