War-weary Pa. voters question exit strategy

updated 2:49 p.m. ET April 12, 2008

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - For Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, vital to getting the edge in military service-oriented but war-weary Pennsylvania is figuring out how to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq without dragging the flag in the process.

Trailing in delegates, Clinton has staked her candidacy on a strong showing in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary. Obama has eroded Clinton's lead in several state polls and an upset could irrevocably damage her candidacy.

Both candidates promise to end the war, but in a state with a remarkable history of venerating military service, how that end should be achieved weighs heavily with many voters. Polling shows Democratic voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the war. What divides them is a quick withdrawal versus a longer drawdown of troops.

For many voters, the anger over the war that helped push five Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers out of office in 2006 has turned to almost a resigned acceptance that little will change quickly.

"It's much bigger than one person. Whoever gets to be president, I've been telling everybody, will have an uphill battle to climb," said Krista McKeon, 37, whose husband is with a Pennsylvania Army National Guard unit serving in Iraq.

Military service is commonplace in communities across the state. During World War II, one in seven U.S. war fighters was from Pennsylvania. The state sustained heavy casualties then, and later in Vietnam. Today, one in 10 residents is a veteran.

From Philadelphia to Erie
Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 17,000 members of the 19,000-member Pennsylvania National Guard have deployed in support of the nation's war on terror. About 6,000 troops assigned to armories from Philadelphia to Erie have been alerted that they could be leaving for Iraq early next year in what would be the Pennsylvania Guard's largest Iraq deployment yet.

Service to country and patriotism are particularly evident in Allentown, about an hour's drive from Philadelphia. During the American Revolution, townspeople hid the Liberty Bell from the British in the still existing Zion's Reformed Church of Christ.

Each year, a group called the "Honorary First Defenders," named after area troops who were said to be the first to reach the U.S. Capitol in 1861 to protect it from Confederate forces, gathers to pay tribute to Allentown's only Medal of Honor recipient.

'We've lost so many for what?'
Sgt. Candice Gerber joined the Pennsylvania Guard in 2004 because she wanted to help with the war effort. She spent a year in Ramadi, Iraq, as a medic, where she saw young soldiers killed and maimed. Now, she's torn about what should happen next.

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP Sgt. Candice Gerber, speaks with the Associated Press at an Allentown, Pa. cafe, on March 19, 2008.

"I don't really think we should call it a done deal and come home tomorrow morning, but I don't feel we should be there for the next 50 years either. ... We've lost so many, but if we come home now it's we've lost so many for what?" said Gerber, 30, as she sipped coffee in an Allentown cafe.

In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 84 percent of likely Democratic voters in Pennsylvania said going to war in Iraq was the wrong thing to do. That's similar to Democrats nationally, but higher than the roughly two-thirds of all voters who say it was the wrong thing.

And, 58 percent of likely Pennsylvania Democrats said a timetable should be set for withdrawal, while nearly a third — 29 percent — said troops should be immediately withdrawn.

Clinton is perceived by Pennsylvania's conservative Democrats to have a more cautious, less liberal approach to withdrawing troops than Obama, and that could be a factor in why she's ahead in polls, said Clay Richards, a pollster with Quinnipiac. Both candidates support a phased withdrawal of troops.

"It's kind of a strange dichotomy that they are more skeptical about the war on one hand, and they question why we're there and what we're doing," Richards said. "But on the other hand, there's a built-in patriotism that is not found in other states to the degree that it exists in Pennsylvania."

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