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More reasons I think Iraq, bad as it is, will not be the prime issue in the 2004 election:

Boston Globe:
After a summer of tax cuts and home refinancings, U.S. consumers seem poised for a winter of shopping. But if job growth doesn't start soon, analysts worry spending will dry up and threaten the economic recovery.

For a long time, the appetite of the American shopper has seemed insatiable. Consumers spent the country out of the 2001 recession, barely stumbled during the Iraq war, and hit the mall again armed with tax-cut checks and refinancing cash.

But with the unemployment rate hovering at 6.1 percent and the jobless recovery emerging as a major election concern for President Bush, policy-makers have warned that a weak labor market could sap consumer spending.

"Probably the biggest downside risk in the near- and intermediate-term economic outlook is the possibility that the job market will remain relatively sluggish," Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Alfred Broaddus said this week.

Having watched 2.6 million jobs vanish since he took office, Bush will likely soon be the first president since Depression-era leader Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs in his first term. Desperate to halt the decline, Bush has cut taxes to help goose consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

So far it has worked. Aided by mortgage refinancing and still-strong home buying, the tax cuts likely pushed annualized consumer spending 5.7 percent higher in the third quarter, said John Lonski, chief economist for Moody's Investors Service.
...
But Lonski warned the extra cash in the economy will not be enough to offset consumer uncertainty if new hiring does not pick up by at least 100,000 jobs a month the end of the year.

"That's the critical element here. If you take that away, what that tells me is this latest dose of fiscal policy failed to get the U.S. economy out of its rut ... and we'll probably see a notable slowing in consumer spending by the first half of 2004," Lonski said.
...
"It sounds very simplistic, but people who don't have jobs typically don't spend as much money as people who do," said Tannenbaum. "That's where the risks come in for me. For spending to sustain itself it is essential that we have job creation."