Pressing Issues: What About Polling?

By: Greg Mitchell Everyone, as they say, is entitled to his or her opinion, and certainly has the right to express it at the ballot box. But is there a level playing field in terms of factual knowledge about certain key issues? If not, does the media bear any blame, or are Americans becoming so partisan they just tune out information that does not square with their beliefs?

I've been asking these questions all year, and now there's more food for thought.

The war in Iraq may decide the 2004 presidential race. But, even at this late date, how well informed are voters? A new survey shows that, for many, the answer is: not very.

The poll for the non-partisan Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) reveals that a vast majority of President Bush's backers continue to believe, contrary to evidence, that Saddam Hussein had strong links to al-Qaeda and possessed WMDs or a major program for making them.

Equally interesting, the new survey finds that if the Bush supporters knew (or accepted) the truth, some of them might feel quite differently about the war. Asked whether we should have gone to war if Iraq was not making WMD or providing strong support to al-Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said no.

The poll was conducted in September and October, with three samples of 968, 798, and 959 respondents. Margins of error were 3.2 to 4%. PIPA is affiliated with the Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland.

Here are the details:

* On WMDs: Even after the final report of chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD or a major program for developing them.

And 57% also believe, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

* On the al-Qaeda link: 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has actually been found.

Plus, 55% believe, again incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. One in five believe Iraq was directly involved with the 9/11 attacks. Large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

"One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs," Steven Kull, director of PIPA, asserts in a report, "is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them. Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters agree." Indeed, 82% of Bush supporters perceive the administration as saying that Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program. Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration claims Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda.

But what's the deeper explanation for all this? Kull seems to let the media off the hook and direct attention to the receiver rather than the messenger.

"To support the president and to accept that he took the U.S. to war based on mistaken assumptions," he explains, "likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."

If true, this is pretty much a full-court suppress.
Just 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the United States having gone to war with Iraq. Fifty-one percent incorrectly assume Bush favors U.S. participation in the Kyoto treaty. Fifty-three percent believe he supports the International Criminal Court, despite his attack on that body in the recent debates.

"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake.

"This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters, and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."

(For more information on the survey's methodology, go to www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp.)