Afghan War Barely Surfaces in Midterm Elections

– Americans have been assured by Presidents Bush and Obama that this war is critical to our security, but never as a country asked to mobilize. Despite deadliest month ever for our troop, Afghanistan remains well down the list of voter concerns, polls show –

By James Dao

BENSALEM, Pa. — Asked what he considers the major issues in this year’s midterm Congressional elections, Claude Nicolas, 24, paused from munching on a sushi roll and crisply ticked off three: jobs, the economy and immigration.

The war in Afghanistan? “Wow, I didn’t think of that,” he replied, almost sheepishly. “That’s definitely a factor of how not on the public radar it is. It’s gone on so long people are tired of it.”

Virtually since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the nine-year war in Afghanistan has largely been an afterthought in American politics. Though public interest has risen somewhat in recent months amid national debate over strategy, the firing of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and higher casualty counts, Afghanistan remains well down the list of voter concerns, polls show.

And interviews with voters, elected officials and political strategists this week suggest that the publication this week of thousands of classified battlefield reports will not substantially change that status.

The classified documents, which paint a grim picture of the war, have clearly bolstered antiwar activists who have been trying, without much success, to pressure Congress to curtail war spending and set timetables for troop withdrawals.

The documents also seem to be fueling widespread unease among voters who were already concerned about the war’s progress, a group that has grown substantially in the past year, according to many polls.

But there is a perception shared by many strategists in both parties that the leaked reports will not propel Afghanistan to the forefront of voter concerns, unless the economy improves drastically or the war itself takes a startling turn for the worse.

Representative Joe Sestak, a Democrat who is in a tight race for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania, said it was not a top-of-mind issue for voters he meets.

“The way people have been slammed by the economy, the documents might cause the war to move from the fifth or sixth question I get to the fourth,” he said.

But Mr. Sestak, a retired Navy vice admiral, said he hoped the leaks would prod the Obama administration to do a better job of explaining its goals in Afghanistan and to establish benchmarks for progress.

“The public does have doubts about the strategy,” he said. “Let’s answer their questions.”

Norman Stellander, a resident of this Philadelphia suburb who usually votes Republican, exemplifies the general lack of interest in the war. Mr. Stellander lost his job with a medical publishing company in June, and the only issue that really matters to him is the economy.

The leaked military documents, while troubling in their revelations about civilian casualties, simply underscore the confusion of war, he said. “To me, it isn’t that big a deal.”

Both parties have political and ideological reasons for not raising questions about the war, party strategists acknowledge.

Though the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly vocal in its opposition to the war, many Democratic candidates are still hesitant about criticizing President Obama’s strategy.

Moreover, many Democrats won election in 2006 by arguing that the United States should get out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. Those incumbents cannot now easily call for rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan, said Jon Soltz, chairman of Vote Vets, a liberal group that supports veterans running for Congress.

“There’s always been a belief that we were justified in our intervention in Afghanistan and have to give it time,” he said.

Republicans, on the other hand, have for years supported the war and now find themselves uncomfortably aligned with a Democratic president they oppose on almost every other issue. Though Republicans have criticized Mr. Obama’s setting a timetable of mid-2011 for starting a drawdown in Afghanistan, they have largely supported his sending 30,000 additional troops.

And many Republican candidates express faith in Mr. Obama’s decision to replace General McChrystal as the top commander in Afghanistan with Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“People are very, very comfortable with General Petraeus,” said Representative Jo Ann Emerson, Republican of Missouri. “And because of that confidence, it’s not the top issue that they’re talking about.”

By almost every measure, public interest in the Afghanistan war has been relatively low. A July poll by CBS News showed that 7 percent of Americans considered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the most important problems facing the country, compared with 38 percent who answered jobs and the economy. (The poll, of a random sample of 966 adults nationwide, had a margin of error of three percentage points.)

An analysis of major news reports between January 2007 and July 2010 by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Afghanistan ranked sixth in total coverage by print, online, television and radio outlets, well behind the presidential campaign, the economic crisis, the health care debate and Iraq.

“Unfortunately, most Americans aren’t paying attention,” said Representative Patrick J. Murphy, Democrat of Pennsylvania. “Which I think is a testament to the fact that 1 percent of us are fighting these wars.”

Mr. Murphy, an Iraq war veteran, won election in 2006 arguing that the United States should withdraw from Iraq and devote its resources to Afghanistan. Though he says he is “frustrated” by the Karzai government in Afghanistan, he supports the Obama administration’s policies there.

There are a few exceptions to the reticence of many candidates on Afghanistan. In Missouri, a former Green Beret and Iraq war veteran, Tommy Sowers, a Democrat running for Congress, has questioned why the United States is training thousands of Afghan security forces when the Afghan government cannot afford to pay their salaries.

And in the Albany area, Chris Gibson, a retired Army colonel with multiple combat deployments who is running as a Republican, has criticized the military’s restrictive rules of engagement, which are intended to avoid civilian casualties.

But Mr. Gibson said, “Generally speaking, I support the administration” on Afghanistan. Both Mr. Gibson and Mr. Sowers said the economy was the major focus of their campaigns.

Even in a Congressional race in the Fayetteville, N.C., region, which includes Fort Bragg and many veteran voters, the subject of Afghanistan rarely arises, said Pete Hegseth, executive director of Vets for Freedom, a group supporting conservative Iraq and Afghan war veterans running for Congress.

“It almost feels like both sides are willing to call a truce and not talk about it until the November elections are over,” Mr. Hegseth said.