I’m not quite sure how I could have missed this over the weekend, but the Birmingham News had a piece examining the growing war-weariness here in Alabama. The story was based off of polling done by AEA’s highly reliable research outfit and signals that Jeff Sessions is in serious trouble.

Among many other interesting findings, the survey found that nearly half of Alabamians plan to vote for a US Senate candidate who supports redeploying troops out of Iraq. And while Sessions likes to focus on immigration, very few Alabamians seem to think it’s a major issue.

Although I’ve highlighted key portions, I definitely encourage you to read the whole thing:

Karl Chesser feels it is high time the United States got out of Iraq.

“We ain’t accomplishing nothing,” the 42-year-old USX employee said last week. “So why are we over there?”

A new statewide survey suggests that a growing number of Alabama voters share Chesser’s sentiments. It even shows a majority do not think the war has been worth the blood and treasure it has cost, a finding in contrast to sentiments recorded in surveys three years ago.

The survey also suggests that the war, now in its fourth year, is a major reason a majority of Alabamians say the country is “on the wrong track.”

The statewide telephone poll of 563 registered voters was conducted May 2-3 and May 7-9 by the Capital Survey Research Center, the polling arm of the Alabama Education Association. Its margin of error was 4 percent.

Overall, 61 percent of those in the survey said they thought Alabama was on the right track, but only 33 percent said the same about the nation.

When asked to list the most important issue facing the country, the largest portion - 38 percent - said war. Immigration was a distant second, cited by 7 percent.

While the survey shows overwhelming support for the way the United States military is waging the war in Iraq, it shows President Bush no longer has a majority of Alabama voters backing him on Iraq.

Overall, 44 percent said they approved of Bush’s handling of the conflict. In a 2004 poll, taken during the war’s second year, 54 percent of the surveyed voters backed the president. In the latest survey, 53 percent said they disapproved of the president’s war management, and 58 percent said the United States was not winning in Iraq.

Last week in Woodstock, Karl Chesser had the same bleak assessment.

“It’s a civil war and we can’t fight in it,” he said. “All we’re doing is policing it. It’s just like Vietnam.”

So, what to do?

Nearly half of the surveyed voters said the United States should get the troops out now or within 12 months. About 28 percent said the troops should leave only after the war is won, and 13 percent said more troops should be sent to Iraq.

At the same time, nearly equal numbers supported the Democratic-controlled Congress’ recent passage of a war-funding bill that included a troop withdrawal deadline as supported Bush’s veto of the measure.

Nearly half also said that in 2008 - when the nation elects a president and Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions will be seeking re-election - they would tend to vote for presidential and Senate candidates who support withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

In evaluating Bush’s on-the-job performance, 42 percent of the voters agreed with the statement that the president “means well and is doing the best he can in a difficult job.” The next-highest number, 20 percent, agreed with the statement that Bush “has wrong priorities and is incompetent and doing a poor job.”

But while Alabama strongly supported Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, nearly half of the voters answering the poll said they believed Americans have lost confidence in Bush’s ability to do his job.

“The faster he gets out of office and somebody else takes over, the better it is,” said J.B. Epperson, a retired Delta Airlines spray painter from Parrish who has a son in Iraq with the Marines.

What happens later?:

The voters in the poll also expressed growing pessimism when asked what would happen politically and economically in Iraq after the war comes to an end. Only 12 percent said they believed Iraq would have economic stability and democratic governance; 35 percent said they believed the country would have limited amounts of both; and 38 percent said they believed it would have little or none of either.

In 2004’s survey, 16 percent said Iraq would have economic stability and democracy, and 43 percent said it would have a limited democracy and economy. Twenty-eight percent said it would have much less or none.