Strategic Vision, a Republican polling firm, has recently published a poll in Iowa of 600 Republican likely caucusgoers and 600 Democratic likely caucusgoers, and it contains a startling result which I have yet to see reported anywhere - 52% of Iowa Republicans who plan on attending the caucus favor "a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months". Only 39% oppose it with 9% undecided.
I can understand why this result would get little press - it goes against every bit of Beltway convention "wisdom" that Republicans support the surge and the president and any candidate advocating "defeat" will lose in the primaries and caucuses. However it is simply not true as this question shows - a question orginally written in the most GOP friendly way in 2005 to try and show that leaving Iraq was a fringe position. For example, in their Pennsylvania monthly tracking polls they asked all voters if they "Would you like to see the United States withdraw all troops immediately from Iraq?" In July 2005, leaving was a decidedly minority view (34%) with 57% opposing it. By Election Day 2006, a plurality favored immediate withdrawal (47%) with only 38% opposing it.
Simply put, this poll should be frontpage news not because of the head-to-head results showing Guiliani and Edwards leading and Hillary in 3rd place, but that a majority of Democrats (77%) and Republicans (52%) support a withdrawal timetable more accelarated than what the Congress passed, and Republicans who will make key votes in January of 2008 are completely out of step with their president, leaders in Congress, and every major declared candidate for president on the most important issue facing the country.