California's top Democratic legislator called on Thursday for voters to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in a ballot measure for the state's 2008 presidential primary election. "We do not have to be on the streets of Berkeley or on the streets of Oakland," state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said. "We can now use the ballot box."
During the Vietnam War, both Northern Californian cities hosted frequent anti-war demonstrations, but with students today not threatened by a draft as they were in the 1960s, the Iraq war has not sparked the same level of public response. Polls suggest, however, that a growing percentage of the public favors an end to the U.S. involvement in Iraq.
A Field Poll report released on Thursday said disenchantment with President George W. Bush's handling of the war has pushed his approval rating among California voters to its lowest level since he assumed office and near a record low scored by President Richard Nixon in August 1974 shortly before he resigned from office in the Watergate scandal. Perata said he would introduce his bring-the-troops-home measure on Monday. To make the ballot, the measure requires a majority vote in the state Senate and Assembly, each controlled by Democrats, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature. |