Pure Horserace: Big Issue, Small Impact

How much is Iraq affecting presidential choices? So far, maybe not as much as one might think.

It's well-known that most Democrats have doubts about the war — eight in 10 say that it is going badly in the latest CBS News/NY Times poll, and that party's primary voters wish the U.S. had stayed out in the first place.

But Hillary Clinton — who, some of her opponents have been quick to point out, voted to authorize military action — is the leading preference among Democratic primary voters: she gets 43 percent to Barack Obama's 24 percent and John Edwards' 16 percent in our mid-July poll. She also leads among voters who think her 2002 Iraq vote was a mistake, as well as those who think it wasn't, and by almost identical margins. She leads Obama 43 percent to 24 percent among those calling her vote a mistake and 42 percent to 24 percent among those saying it was not.

Moreover, Clinton is the favored candidate of both that large bloc of Democratic primary voters (three-fourths of them) who wish the U.S. had stayed out, and of those Democrats who think the war was the right thing — and by the same 44 percent to 23 percent margin.

Part of this may be that they are looking forward. Clinton has said she would take steps to end the war, as have Obama and other candidates. That's something most Democrats want to see: more than eight in 10 want troops to at least start coming home now.

On the GOP side, the 2002 war decision isn't much in question — it is widely agreed among their primary voters that Iraq was the right thing to do. Three-quarters of them say so — and today about half of them think the troop surge is working, too.

The top Republican candidates all back the war, but while John McCain has probably been its most prominent proponent throughout, the issue just isn't giving him an electoral edge: GOP primary voters who call the war the right thing picked Giuliani (the overall front-runner) over McCain by more than a 2-to-1 margin in mid-July, 38 percent to 16 percent. Moreover, while McCain has also backed the troop "surge" and urged Americans to have patience with it, he isn't winning among voters who praise the surge, either: Those who see it working pick Giuliani over McCain, 34 percent to 16 percent.

At times McCain has chastised the Bush administration for its management of the war, and this seems to strike somewhat of a chord. In combined polls from July and June he fares a bit better among GOP voters who disapprove of Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq (getting 26 percent support) than those who approve of it (17 percent) — though Giuliani still leads him in both cases. — Anthony Salvanto

Bloggers Unite: This weekend will see the Democrats running for president courting one of their key constituencies — the large network of liberal bloggers who have seen their influence grow in recent years, especially in the wake of the 2006 elections. Hundreds of them are in Chicago for the YearlyKos convention, which takes its name from DailyKos, perhaps the most popular liberal blog around.

While this crowd is firmly committed to electing a Democrat in 2008, it also doesn't hold back in criticizing Democrats who fail to uphold their progressive ideals — and they usually don't sugarcoat their words in ways that more established political organizations would. That makes this weekend a somewhat treacherous one for the Democratic hopefuls, even, as it turns out, the man who has been a favorite of bloggers for the past few years: John Edwards.

Liberal bloggers played a significant role in putting pressure on Democrats to withdraw from a planned Fox News Channel debate earlier this year, and they have long favored Edwards, who earlier this week called on other Democrats to return any donations they had received from media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corp., which owns Fox News (a remark likely aimed at Hillary Clinton).

But it turns out that Edwards has received more Murdoch money than any other candidate, thanks to at least $800,000 he received from the Murdoch-owned HarperCollins publishers. All this is according to the New York Post owned by, you guessed it, Murdoch.

Will the crowd at YearlyKos forgive Edwards for taking what they'd consider "dirty money"? Probably so, but not before they ask him a few questions about it. Not only is Edwards in sync with them on the issues, but he also hasn't hesitated to give bloggers access to his campaign. The same can't be said for Hillary Clinton, who, after much confusion, has agreed to attend breakout sessions following Saturday's candidate forum. That's probably a smart move, but she'll have to do a lot more to win over this skeptical crowd. — David Miller

Must Be Doing Something Right: The anti-tax group Club for Growth has become a power broker of sorts with the conservative movement and has not been afraid to take on Republicans they view as unsupportive of their cause. Still, Mike Huckabee can't help but wonder if there's something more to the $85,000 ad campaign the group launched in Iowa this week attacking his record as governor of Arkansas.

The group has leveled the same criticisms against Huckabee in the past, but coming as it does before the Aug. 11 Republican straw poll in the state, the candidate told reporters in a conference call today that someone must be getting nervous. "Obviously, we're getting some traction," Huckabee said. "We're even finding that we're the target of some negative campaign attacks, and that's always a sign that you must be rattling somebody's cage and threatening somebody."

Huckabee, who said the criticisms are "filled with inaccuracies," would not share specifically his suspicions of who may be behind the ad but said, "I think it's got to be another candidate. I don't know that for sure but I can't imagine anyone else having such a vested interest, at this stage of the game just before the straw poll, than another candidate who realizes that we're gaining a substantial amount of momentum in Iowa."

John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have both said they will not directly participate in the straw poll, but their names are on the ballots and there are suspicions among rival GOP campaigns that both are engaging in some level of organization. Mitt Romney, viewed as the overwhelming front-runner, has worked hard recently to try and downplay expectations. And there's been an increasingly nasty scrum among lower-tier candidates like Huckabee, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson — all trying to break through at the event. Brownback and Huckabee have been engaged in an exchange of words over some anti-Catholic comments made by a Huckabee supporter about the Kansas Senator.

Huckabee was confident that his campaign would have a good showing next week but declined to set any firm goals, saying the order of finish was less important that the separation between the candidates. He also said that while the straw poll was not a complete make-or-break moment for the future of his bid, it remains very important. "If the perception is that we didn't do well enough to continue, then it's going to be hard to get people to continue funding the campaign," Huckabee said.

Expect the heat to get turned up Sunday morning, when the GOP candidates meet for a debate on ABC News. — Vaughn Ververs

Cruel Summer? Congress will be taking a month off starting this weekend, but Democrats want to make sure that Republican incumbents are feeling heat from more than the August sun. The three fundraising wings of the Democratic Party — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Committee — are teaming up to run TV ads this month touting accomplishments in Congress and pressing for an end to the war in Iraq.

The ads will begin airing this Monday on national cable channels. In a statement, DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said the ads are intended to put pressure on GOP lawmakers during their break. "Republicans who continue to vote in lock step with the President Bush's failed policies will be held accountable," he said.

With Congress facing dismal approval ratings, the Democrats may also be trying to improve their own image as well as putting pressure on Republicans. Perhaps they'll come back to Washington in September with approval ratings better than President Bush — though that isn't saying much. — David Miller

Skip At Your Own Risk: Speaking of Iowa — and we will be constantly over the next week — here's a quick thought on campaign strategy. In years past, candidates who may not quite fit in with a caucus process which relies heavily on core party activists on both sides, could make the calculation that it's better to skip the state altogether and make a stand in New Hampshire, where a broader electorate is involved in that state's primary.

McCain did just that in 2000 and went on to trounce Mr. Bush in the New Hampshire primary before effectively losing the nomination in a bitter South Carolina contest. While McCain and Giuliani both have pledged all-out efforts for the January caucuses, their decision to skip the straw poll leaves them with at least a little work to do among activists in the state who have been fiercely courted by other candidates.

The winner of Iowa could get a bigger-than-usual bounce out of the caucuses going into New Hampshire, South Carolina and the rush of states voting by Feb. 5 for one reason — free media. The intense interest in the presidential race will almost certainly be focused most intensely on the Democratic race, where a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows a dead heat between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The Democratic race has proven to be the most closely watched up to this point, with historic candidacies and storylines at play and there's no reason to think that the headlines out of the caucuses in January won't reflect that. For the Republican winner, it means their names will be included right alongside that of Clinton, Edwards or Obama — not an insignificant benefit and one which could provide a bigger-than-usual boost going forward. Just a lazy-day August thought. — Vaughn Ververs

New Hampshire's Defender: Bill Gardner might be the most powerful man in politics you've never heard of. Until now: Gardner, the New Hampshire secretary of state and the man with sole discretion in setting the date of the state's presidential primary, talked about his key role and his state's political culture with CBSNews.com's David Miller for this week's installment of Political Players. While Gardner is an ardent supporter of New Hampshire retaining its first-in-the-nation primary, he also believes the rush of states to move up their nominating contests has gotten out of hand. What kind of solution does he propose? Find out in this week's interview.

Editor's note: Pure Horserace is a daily update of political news as interpreted by the political observers at CBSNews.com. Click here to sign up for the e-mail version.
By Anthony Salvanto, David Miller and Vaughn Ververs