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WASHINGTON - Once expected to be a stark referendum on the Iraq war and national security, the presidential campaign in both parties has been turning more toward domestic concerns, from illegal immigration and taxes among Republicans, to healthcare and Social Security among Democrats.
The shift, analysts say, has brought traditional issues and constituencies back into play and helped candidates with perceived weaknesses in national security - such as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee - to rise in many polls.
"Right now, the candidates might not need to talk about [national security] because concerns about the economy are starting to grow," said Dartmouth College professor Linda L. Fowler, a political scientist who studies elections.
Fowler and other analysts attribute the shift in part to the slowdown in troop deaths in Iraq, which has diminished some of the urgency surrounding the war among voters of both parties, analysts said. In addition, this week's release of new intelligence suggesting that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 could diminish what had been an intensive focus on Iran in both parties.
Release of the Iran assessment came amid new polls this week of three early-voting states showing that domestic concerns - healthcare among Democrats and illegal immigration among Republicans - were ranked as important as Iraq or terrorism.
"I think an overwhelming focus on Iraq is less important in the minds of voters," said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center who conducted the new polls of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. "It's not going away, but I think it no longer dominates in a way that prevents other issues from coming to the fore. When Iraq was such an extraordinary concern, it served to block out other issues."
Recent news has also put a greater focus on the economy and fears of a recession. The weakness of the dollar compared with other currencies coupled with the nationwide slowdown in the real estate market, have struck chords with voters that the broader economic numbers - still showing strong growth - have not.
The shift toward domestic issues may have helped fuel a sharp rise in polls for Huckabee, the Republican who has focused the most on domestic concerns. His numbers have gone up as those for Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor and the candidate who has most emphasized the war on terrorism - and confronting Iran - have gone down.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released Tuesday showed Giuliani leading Huckabee by 23 percent to 17 percent, compared with a lead of 32 percent to 7 percent two months ago.
Giuliani is using much of his time on the stump and his TV ads to highlight his belief in tax cuts and his determination to block Democratic spending proposals, as a way of trying to appeal to traditional GOP constituencies. In addition, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's latest round of town meetings in Iowa and New Hampshire have featured an intensive PowerPoint presentation about the economy, with only incidental mentions of national security.
"We're going to have to have the strongest economy in the world if we want to have strongest military in the world," Romney said on Monday in Manchester, before beginning his slideshow.
On the Democratic side, Obama now leads fellow Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton in most polls in Iowa, and the two have recently sparred over healthcare and Social Security more than the Iraq war.
Obama has also loosened his purse strings, calling for more domestic spending on priorities that have long appealed to traditional Democratic voters.
"We're going to have to spend more money on it," Obama said, in response to a question in Iowa last month about cancer research.
In New Hampshire, voters crowding a Bill Clinton event stressed, in interviews, their desire for a president who can grapple with healthcare and economic insecurity.
"For right now, I think we've got to work on things within our own country," said Judy Couture, 56, a teacher who helps care for her granddaughter.
Her daughter would like to stay home with the baby, Couture said, but she must work to get healthcare coverage for her family because her husband's job as a mason doesn't have adequate benefits.
Even voters with a stake in the Iraq war - such as John Lane, 68, a retired teacher whose son served in Iraq - spoke of the importance of the environment, healthcare, and people "being able to hold onto the homes they worked so hard for all their lives."
But the war remains in his thoughts as he worries about withdrawing too quickly, which he said could leave the United States vulnerable and allow other nations to "lose faith in our ability to stand up for what we believe in."
Many analysts believe that war and security could return to the forefront of the debates, and the minds of voters, if circumstances suddenly change.
"We had a hundred die a month [in Iraq] in the summer, and now it's down to the mid-30s," said Lawrence J. Korb, a national security analyst for the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress. "Compared to where it was in the summer, it's less of an issue. But it will build up again when General Petraeus comes back to Congress in March."
And the news could, at any moment, put the focus back on the Middle East.
"We've learned over the years that what we see in Iraq today does not necessarily correlate with what we'll see tomorrow," said Fowler, of Dartmouth. "And Iran - and particularly its president - is always in a position to provoke us."
Lisa Wangsness of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
