Exit Poll from CNN... 62% thought national issues mattered most. Corruption, Terrorism, Economy, and Iraq were the four major concerns... and all fairly close in percentage points.
It's very early, but... The New Republic -- These numbers have now come in to me from two different sources though like the others they seem too pro-Dem to be true: Dems up: VA 52-47 RI 53-46 PA 57-42 OH 57-43 NJ 52-45 MT 53-46 MO 50-48 MD 53-46 GOP up: TN 51-48 AZ 50-46 --Ryan Lizza posted 6:08 p.m http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=55236
I think these are more intertwined than the stand-alone play they got on the TV yesterday and this morning... Iraq is Iraq, but I think this also shows that a majority of Americans finally rejected the Bush construct that Iraq=WOT and WOT=Iraq. I bet if you dug deeper here, you would find people thinking that Iraq has impeded our ability to deal with terror. Similarly, I think the corruption issue is not just Foley/Abramoff, but the Iraq and Katrina contracts and the massive amount of money we've been pumping to no-bid contracts. I knew Dems would stand a good chance when I heard people around work... people who don't normally follow politics, people who probably usually vote Repub... complaining about Congress removing the guy investigating corruption in Iraq. And they were pissed. And finally, I think in many minds the state of the economy was tied to corruption as it is clear that while some indicators are strong, the rewards aren't trickling down and people started to think the system was rigged against the average joe. To sum up, I think these are all related and go to Republicans governance, decisions, venality, and incompetence. And the country rejected them for all those interrelated things.
I posted this in the "results" thread awhile ago, but corruption in government was a much bigger factor than most pundits expected going into the election, as the poll you posted shows, rimrocker. The public got the sense that the Bush Administration and the GOP Congress were selling pork to the highest bidder on an unprecedented scale, and they weren't wrong. I think another thing that got tossed into that category were the massive scandals... Foley, etc., that plagued the GOP in the runup to the election. Keep D&D Civil.
