Americans Still Hypnotized By Karl Rove -- Michael

From the National Journal: Republicans own the terrorism issue.

By Gwen Glazer

Updated: 1 hour, 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Tuesday brought the last big wave of primaries, and some Democrats are riding high on big wins and strong national numbers. But a new poll may bring them back down by highlighting a nagging problem: Republicans' grip on security issues.

ABC News surveyed more than 850 registered voters and found that they preferred Democrats over Republicans to deal with the nation's big problems in general. Democrats were ahead by 6 points in the generic congressional matchup.

On terrorism issues, however, respondents veered right. Forty-eight percent said they trusted Republicans more than Democrats to handle the fight against terrorism. There was a 7-point difference between the two parties -- a big swing from the 8-point lead the Democrats held in ABC's measure just a month ago.

Time to 'fess up. I'm pretty much a wavering Republican who has landed in the same spot as the Commissar at Politburo Diktat. I think the invasion of Iraq was a mistake compounded by bungled execution. If you want to know why, the Commissar has already covered the subject. You can search his site for numerous excellent posts on what went wrong. I'm not going to get started here.

Still, it comes as no surprise that we Republicans own this issue, for the simple reason that the public correctly perceives that Republicans are serious about doing something. And that is precisely why I will continue to vote Republican. A flawed strategy, intelligence failures, tactical miscues at Tora Bora and so forth, all mean very little when you boil it down to a simple question:

Who has the guts to fight?

Do Democrats Have An Achilles Heel?

posted by Ace at 06:26 PM

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