But you're right, Iraq is not the issue for most Democrats. They want it over and both Democrats do too.

I find the toxic mix if identity politics/clinton hatred/media bias actually a better alternative to so many Americans getting that issue incorrect.

I don't really feel like going through all the spreadsheet work for free, but let's make a bet --- any amount you think you can afford --- that if Iraq voters had split 50:50 nationally, Hillary Clinton would have the popular vote lead, and the delegate margin would be far closer, and the race would very much still be on.

More to the point though, your response is completely non-responsive. The argument is not that Clinton's Iraq vote led to Obama's decisive margins in the primaries and caucuses, it's that Clinton's Iraq vote alienated her to a large cross-section of the party and provided the opening for a freshman senator to challenge her. Obama's delegate margin comes from activist support in caucus states that was mobilized to a huge extent out of dissatisfaction with the Democratic party establishment c. 2002-2003 signing on to the war. Not everyone thus dissatisfied with the party establishment necessarily identified the war as his/her top issue to exit pollsters.

Mainly because we already had an election in 2004.  If the AUMF vote were all important, Dean would have been the nominee, not Kerry and Edwqayerds.

They would have run her out of town on a rail because over 70% of Americans backed the war (hell, I think 1/4 of the country wanted to use nuclear, that's how upset people were).

It would be nice if people chose Obama based on Iraq.

hillary clinton did not vote for a resolution declaring war against iraq, any more than any other member of congress did. the AUMF was not such a declaration. i challenge anyone, anywhere, anytime to cite the bill declaring a state of war exists between the United States and Iraq. take your time.

this whole attack is a fraud on its face. you should know better BTD, as a lawyer, presumably having some familiarity with the constitution. no, i'm not just being nit picky or just "technical", i'm being correct. prove me wrong.

the korean "war" wasn't, it was a "police action". neither was our involvement in vietnam. check out your history books, just to prove i'm right.

There were thousands and thousands of New Yorkers in the streets for the pre-war protests. We had candlelight vigils all up and down Park Avenue and everywhere else.

[M]y guess is that if she had voted against the war Clinton would be the Democratic candidate.

It would be nice if people chose Obama based on Iraq.

And let's look at what your claim amounts to. It amounts to claiming that Hillary Clinton's AUMF vote had no effect at all on the decisions of voters for whom Iraq was the most important issue, which is preposterous. It also denies the possibility that voters can identify, say, the economy as the most important issue, but still make a decision based on Iraq because they view candidates' economic platforms as too alike to provide grounds for a choice. But that phenomenon is pervasive. Finally, the AUMF vote was not simply a drag on Clinton's candidacy because of voters who took a substantive position opposed to hers, but because the vote was a token of larger dissatisfaction with the Democratic establishment, and such voters may have identified any non-Iraq issue as being the most important to them, while the AUMF vote, because of what it represented, was still the decisive factor in their vote.

But these wildly innumerate errors of yours are neither here nor there, because they have no bearing on the argument Lemieux actually made and Drum endorsed, which you refuse to acknowledge or respond to.

But that argument is just patently obvious. There would be no exit polls worth looking at had it not been for Clinton's AUMF vote. Obama never could have put together his fundraising machine and base of activist supporters in 2007, and Clinton would have handily won in Iowa and New Hampshire and marched to the nomination.