Iowa Does Not Like This War

It may have turned red in 2004, but I am still proud to be from Iowa. From The Nation:

"She {Clinton} floats so quickly, vacillates so often, that I don't think people have any confidence that she will expedite the end of the war," says Ed Fallon, a former state representative and candidate for governor who has endorsed Edwards.

Polls show that the war is still the number-one issue for Iowa Democrats, leading healthcare and the economy by a comfortable margin. While antiwar activists may be opposed to Hillary, the polls are more ambiguous, reflecting an electorate still very much in flux. A number of polls from May through October showed Clinton to be the favorite among that broad sector of Democratic voters who may not be political junkies but who still cite the war as their top issue. In an October 29 University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll, for example, Clinton leads Obama by two points overall but by fifteen among voters whose top priority is ending the war. Yet the ramped-up criticism from Obama and Edwards does seem to be damaging Hillary; in a mid-November Washington Post Iowa poll, Obama not only leads Clinton overall but does better on the question of who would best handle Iraq...

...It's not that antiwar sentiment has disappeared. Iowa is less hawkish and more internationalist than most swing states. There are vigils, yard signs, meetings, sit-ins. Iraq comes up in some form at every town-hall stop. Every Democrat mentions the need to get out of Iraq in his or her stump speech. In 2006 Iowans elected two new Democratic Congressmen and flipped both the state House and Senate blue, the only state besides New Hampshire with such a Democratic tidal wave. And yet the war goes on.

I really hope that Iowa Democrats do not go with Clinton. If she comes in #3 in Iowa everything changes. Then people might stop looking at me so crazy when I say I don't think she has the nomination in the bag.