U.S. evangelical support for Iraq war slipping
By Ed Stoddard
Reuters
Friday, October 27, 2006; 7:34 AM
DALLAS (Reuters) - A new poll shows support for the war in Iraq is slipping among white evangelical Protestants, previously a key pillar of support for President George W. Bush's conduct of the conflict.
The poll is the latest bad domestic news for Bush and the Republicans about Iraq with just 12 days to go to congressional elections in which the Democrats are widely expected to capture control of the House of Representatives.
Conducted by the PEW Research Center, it found that 58 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed felt the United States made the right decision in using force in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, below the 71 percent in a previous poll in September.
Scott Keeter of the PEW Research Center said it was hard to say why evangelical support seemed to have fallen so sharply but geography could be one reason.
"Many evangelicals are in the South and the military presence there is quite large and so the impact of the war on local communities is probably greater there," he said.
The PEW poll also found that only 48 percent of white evangelical Protestants now thought the war effort was going very or fairly well, versus 61 percent in September.
report:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102700358_pf.htmlhttp://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree