landslide

this poll result is really remarkable:

WANT NEW CONGRESS TO CONCENTRATE ON:

War in Iraq 45%
Economy/jobs 7%
Health care 7%
Immigration 6%

the full poll results (pdf) are here.

just to put this in context, in an election a 15% lead is considered to be a landslide. what's amazing is that the war in iraq is the top priority for the public by almost a 40 point margin. i've never seen any poll showing any issue that far ahead of the others. none of the other priorities even breaks single digits. if you combine the totals for the next three highest choices, "war in iraq" still leads by a 25 point margin! has the public ever been so unified in naming its top priority for the country?

the same poll shows that the public disapproves of bush's handling of iraq by another huge margin: 72% to 23%. the signs couldn't be clearer that the public wants the president to radically change course on iraq. he won't, which will probably assure his spot in history as a profoundly out of touch president.