Strong Support For The Supplemental Funding Legislation

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From a new Pew poll released today:

Summary of Findings

A solid majority of Americans say they want their congressional representative to support a bill calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by August 2008. Nearly six-in-ten (59%) say they would like to see their representative vote for such legislation, compared with just 33% who want their representative to oppose it.

Democrats are united in their support of legislation calling for a U.S. troop withdrawal by August 2008, and most independents (61%) also favor this step. Most Republicans oppose this step, but there are substantial divisions within the GOP. More than four-in-ten moderate and liberal Republicans (44%) want their representative to vote for legislation calling for an August 2008 deadline for a troop withdrawal, compared with only about a quarter of conservative Republicans (26%).

Even as the public registers strong support for a congressional deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces, there has been a modest rise in optimism about conditions in Iraq. Four-in-ten Americans say that the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going very or fairly well, up 10 points from February, when positive perceptions reached an all-time low. The shift has come disproportionately among Republicans (up 16 points), though independents and Democrats also are more positive about the situation in Iraq than they were in February (up 10 and nine points, respectively).

The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 21-25 among 1,503 Americans, finds that opinions about the impact of President Bush's troop surge in Iraq – like nearly every other issue relating to the war – are deeply divided along partisan lines.

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How would the American public have reacted if the House had put up a bill to defend and had it defeated by 350 votes? And yes, you need the support of the American people to end the war.

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=313