The Silver Lining of Iraq

Many men have dreams
And some have silver lining
--Led Zeppelin

(Okay, I know this is a post about Iraq, but that lyric is pretty dark. Good, but dark.)
Here is the latest positive news from the State with a date with Destiny. This is from a poll of 5,000 Iraqis in Baghdad...not completely representative, but not bad either: (via: Powerline)

What will you base your vote on?
Political agenda - 65%
Factional origin - 14%
Party Affiliation - 4%
National Background - 12%
Other reasons - 5%

Do you support dialog with the deposed Baathists?
Yes - 15%
No - 84%
Do not know - 1%

Do you support postponing the election?
Yes - 18%
No - 80%
Do not know - 2%

Do you think the elections will take place as scheduled?
Yes -
83%
No - 13%
Do not know - 4%

Couple of Notes: Yes, okay, the Shiites are lovin' life and think they have a decent shot of doing well in the election....and they also make up a huge percentage of Baghdad. I'm not sure how many Sunnis were involved in this poll, but I would be interested...
OpinionJournal's Chrenkoff has a little mo' info:

Here, meanwhile, you can find the updated list of over 220 registered parties and independent candidates (entities) that will contest the election. The registered entities are, in turn, expected to field some 5,000 candidates running on 83 candidate lists: "Nine of the lists were submitted by alliances of political parties, 47 by individual parties and 27 by independents."

One of the parties which will be participating in the poll is the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni party that until recently has been threatening to boycott the poll.

Right on. Let the democratic revolution begin:

It's got to happen somewhere
It's got to happen sometime
There's no better place than here
There's no better time than now
--RATM

Renegades! Of their time and Age!

If You Don't Ride a Camel, You Ain't Shiite!

***Have you noticed that my optimism differs from post to post?....um, well, I have too***