Asked about which party would be better at a number of issues facing the nation, the public said, among other things :
] Controlling government spending:
]
] Democrats 31
] Republicans 33
]
] Dealing with taxes:
]
] Democrats 35%
] Republicans 37
]
] Dealing with foreign policy:
]
] Democrats 29%
] Republicans 43
]
] Promoting strong moral values:
]
] Democrats 23%
] Republicans 45

[ now, my politics are pretty obvious, but even putting that aside, how in gods name can anyone say that the republicans are better at controlling government spending? You may believe that the spending was justified, or even beneficial in the long term (though I don't agree), but you simply cannot say that republicans have been about fiscal restrait... it's simply not true. Also, there's a mild contradiction in this data in which people say that dems would be better at reducing the deficit while at the same time being worse at controlling gov't spending...
As for foreign policy... leaving out any questions of the *justification* of the Iraq war, the handling of it was pretty shoddy. It strikes me as incredible that so many people think the republicans have done well on foreign policy. Aside from telling the rest of the world to fuck off while we prove what massive cojones we have, what FP successes have we had? I guess people like arrogance.
I'll leave the "moral values" part as an exercise, except to say that espousing a set of morals or ideals (particularly religous ones) is not the same as actually living by them.

On the plus side, more prople thought dems would succeed with things like the deficit, environment, health care, energy policy and education. If this race turns out to be about the economy and health care more than the war in Iraq (as the Dem. Primaries seem to indicate) the dems may have a chance, even with Kerry. -k]