A Two-Way Street on Iraq: On the Interaction of Citizen Policy Preferences and Presidential Approval

To the extent voters respond at all to presidential policy positions, they may do so by changing their views on the policy or by changing their views of the president. Presidents need to account for both changes as they care both about citizen approval and citizen policy views. We explore this dynamic in response to the Iraq War using multiple statistical methods. We find consistent evidence that citizen views of President Bush influenced their support for the war even as citizen views of the war affected their approval of Bush. Net changes in aggregate public opinion were smaller than gross changes because of simultaneous movement in both directions on both the war and the president. Recognizing this two-way movement of opinion helps us to better understand the challenges facing presidents in leading public opinion.