We’ve heard for years now that the war in Iraq will overshadow everything else in the election.

This was true in the 2004 election, when the issue polarized voters and eventually leached into domestic politics. Following the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Bush’s administration was seen as incompetent and indifferent; distressing the nature of Iraq.

Today, there’s a difference. We have an election (and candidates) detracting from a war.

Polls reported in the Washington Post, show a one-eighth decline in the salience of the Iraq issue. Another interesting poll by WMUR in New Hampshire shows that most Democrats and Republicans in that critical primary stage have shown double digit drops in citing Iraq.

Peter Beinart, senior fellow at the Council on foreign relations, told NPR that Iraq was the biggest non-story of the campaign.

“I think it’s because several candidates have oriented their messages around the Iraq issue; on the Republican side, Rudy Guiliani saying he was the toughest on terrorism and Mitt Romney arguing that he could bring a confidence to a war on terrorism that has been badly managed. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, whose strength and experience argument very much meshed with this sense that we face a very dangerous war, specifically in Iraq. I think in some ways, all of those candidates messages have been slightly undermined by their premise, which was Iraq would be at the front of people’s consciousness is not as true as it was a few months ago.”

Iraq is fading, Beinart said, because fewer people are dying. This means fewer front-page stories.

This is the key difference in the 2004 election. The war isn’t going badly.

In 2004, the state of Iraq was described as “unstable.” Insurgent attacks increased by 23 percent, and oil, electricity and water services were all below pre-invasion levels.

As we are seeing today, there is substantial evidence that the counter-insurgency strategy worked. Signs that the military planned to pull out shifted the dynamic and the Mahdi Army was instructed to avoid clashes with American and Iraqi forces.

As Beinart stated, the world just isn’t such a frightening place anymore.

This invites a brighter appearance of domestic issues such as health care on the

Democratic side and immigration on the Republican side. Americans also have the luxury of focusing on the personality and character of the candidates (such as Huckabee).

However, if movies, specifically “Wag the Dog” have taught me anything, this issue won’t be left idle for long.

Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both agree that the war isn’t good and getting out is paramount. Some of their issues, such as health care, are so closely aligned that they don’t have much to quibble about. Meanwhile, McCain is backing off the issue after his “We’ll be in Iraq for the next 100 years” comment. He was essentially saying we’ll have a permanent base there (not be in a state of war) but people jumped on it nonetheless.

I see this as the lull before the storm. Come election time, there will be much richer debates from both parties and the Iraq issue certainly won’t be so buried.