I have believed for a long time now that whenever you see dismal poll numbers for Congress' approval ratings, there is one simple reason for them: Iraq. Democrats swept both houses of Congress last year, and the reason why the people who voted them in do not approve of the job they've been doing is because they haven't done more to end the war in Iraq.

My belief in this basic premise is strengthened by new poll numbers from Pew. The statement (from the survey): "In challenging Bush about Iraq, Democratic leaders are going..." had four possible answers: "Too far," "Not far enough," "About right," and "Don't know."

Forty-seven percent -- almost half of America -- responded "Not far enough." A further 23% answered "About right," meaning that seven in ten Americans are basically on the Democrats' side, with five out of seven of them thinking Democrats should go further. Only 21% answered "Too far."

What's even more astounding is the breakdown of the "Not far enough" number. Two-thirds of all Democrats (65%) agree that Democratic leaders are not going far enough to end the war, but an unexpected 21% of Republicans answered the same way. Independents polled almost exactly the same as the overall numbers.

So one out of every five Republicans would like congressional Democrats to end the war faster. No wonder Ron Paul is getting so much money.

These numbers are good news for Democrats -- if they will only believe what the numbers say, and act accordingly. This is important, because the next hand in this high-stakes poker game is being dealt right now. President Bush, on one side of the table, began with an ante of around $150 million for his continued Iraq adventure. But before the cards are even dealt, he has attempted to up this ante another $50 billion, to the tune of almost $200 billion to fund the war.

The Democrats have countered that their almost $500 billion for the Pentagon's yearly budget (that's a half a trillion dollars for one year) is going to be the ante for this round, and are opening with a very short leash -- only $50 billion more for the war, with as many strings as they can attach to it. This, they say, would only fund the war for three or four months, at which time Bush would have to come back and ask for more.

Nancy Pelosi is even raising hopes that this time things will be different than the last few rounds of this game. She is hinting that if this bill doesn't make it, no other bill will be introduced... this year. While timidly caveated, it's at least a step in the right direction. But she needs to realize that Democrats hold all the cards in this game. The public is on their side, strongly. Democrats who fear that Republicans will call them "soft on national defense" in their next campaign need to realize that Republicans are going to do this anyway, no matter what happens. Democrats need to realize that 68% of Americans think Iraq was a bad mistake, and most of them are begging Democrats to do something stronger about it.

There are plenty of different tactics Democrats could take in this fight. There are many good ideas out there for how to force President Bush to end the war. Americans don't really care what method is attempted, but they do want to see it happen. Democrats could turn their congressional approval ratings around almost instantly just by standing up to Bush on Iraq.

It's not the size of the dog in this particular Iraq funding fight, it's the size of the fight in the (Democratic) dog. And the more fight they show on this issue, the more the voters are going to reward them. But they need to actually stand up and fight.

-- Chris Weigant