Published: December 2, 2009 in the NY Times:

A month ago, Donnie Jones, a 40-year-old Republican who lives outside Dallas, told pollsters that he was not sure President Obama had a plan for the war in Afghanistan. But after hearing the president speak Tuesday night, Mr. Jones feels reassured that Mr. Obama not only has a plan, but also one he can generally support.


Margaret Gilbert, 62, a Democrat from Portsmouth, Va., told the same pollsters that she did not want the United States to send more troops to Afghanistan. But after listening to Mr. Obama, Ms. Gilbert now believes that he has no choice.

And Dave Cegledi, a 66-year-old independent from Olmsted Falls, Ohio, says he does not like Mr. Obama any more today than he did in November. But Mr. Cegledi thinks the president gave a good speech — good enough, indeed, that he might vote for him for re-election if the strategy for Afghanistan works.

Mr. Obama intended his speech on Tuesday at West Point to rally Americans behind his plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and to set an 18-month timetable for starting a withdrawal. And interviews on Wednesday suggested that, while opinions on the war remained wildly diverse, Mr. Obama managed to persuade a significant number of people on both sides of the political aisle, though it was impossible to know how many.

Many Democrats who opposed the war said they now understood the need for escalation, in some cases to the point of supporting it. And Republicans who had thought Mr. Obama unwilling or unable to send more troops praised his decision, though many also criticized him for articulating a timetable for bringing troops home.

"I like the fact that he's sending more troops," said George Bronner, 45, a Republican from Knoxville, Tenn. "This speech does change my opinion about Obama, and it changes it for the better. I didn't think he was going to step up to the plate and get more people over there."

The people interviewed on Tuesday night and Wednesday were randomly selected from a list of respondents to a poll conducted last month by CBS News, which is a frequent partner with The New York Times on national polls. In that poll, 53 percent approved of Mr. Obama's overall job performance, compared with 36 percent who did not, but only 38 percent approved of his handling of the war in Afghanistan. Opinions on troop levels were almost evenly divided, with 39 percent supporting a decrease, 32 percent calling for an increase and 20 percent saying to keep it the same.