Polls, politics and the war.

Okay, I know I vowed not to get involved in the election magilla until the scrum cleared a bit. And I know the old saying "figures never lie, liars figure is especially true when it comes to the art of election polling but I took a gander at this over at RealClearPolitics and was transfixed. Read on, pilgrim.

If a strong majority of Americans are opposed to the Iraq war, which no one disputes, then why are the voters evenly divided between the Republican and Democratic presidential front-runners?

One would think that mounting opposition to the war and President Bush's handling of it would be driving the presidential polls, and that all of the top Republican contenders -- who fiercely back the war -- would be struggling to overcome lopsided Democratic support.

But that's not the case at all. Not only do polling numbers show the GOP's candidates are quite competitive against the Democrats, they are leading them in some surveys.
This is the inherent political contradiction that appears to be shaping up nearly 18 months before the 2008 presidential election takes place. Bush's approval polls are in the 30s, owing largely to the war, and voters rate the Democratic Party much more favorably than the Republicans (52 percent to 40 percent in the Gallup Poll).
But neither party appears to have an advantage in the race for the White House.

This is a troubling early-warning sign for the Democrats and for the candidates who have risen to the top of their list of prospective nominees...

An interesting analysis worth exploring and it's all here.