I love Polls (ABB, Iraq and Bush's base)

[troublemaker]

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. June 17-20, 2004. N=1,201 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. Fieldwork by TNS.

"Before the war, do you think Iraq did or did not provide direct support to the Al Qaeda terrorist group?"

62 Did
33 Did Not
06 No Opinion

"Do you think the Bush Administration intentionally misled the American public about possible links between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist group, or do you think the Administration told the American public what it believed to be true about this?"

48 Intentionally Misled
50 Believed It To Be True
02 No Opinion

I'm sure whoever wrote this poll figured the "intentionally misled" number would have to be smaller than the "no Al Qeada support" number, but it's much larger.

So at least 10% (probably about 15%) of people answered the questions literally to express this view: "Yes, Iraq provided direct support to AQ and yes the administration intentionally misled people about the nature of that support." Or, put more colloquially, "I figure Iraq had something to do with al Qeada but Bush lied to get us into war."

That 10%+ is not ABB people... it's people that accept the general idea that "Arabs are in cahoots on all this stuff," but feel no obligation to embarrass themselves by telling a pollster they think Bush is honest. This is one of many reasons Rove is still worried about shoring up the base.

unrelated note: You may have noticed that the Rasmussen tracking poll never showed a Reagan bounce. Unlike most polls that one is done by machines and the polled group doesn't talk to a human. I've always been curious how much people shape their polling answers because they're worried about what the caller thinks of them...