> Yes. That's consistent with Heaney's results. E.g., partisan composition of antiwar demos in January 2007 was 55% Dem, 40% no party. When Hopey took office, it was 50% no party, under 30% Dem. Without significant participation by Dems, there is no popular antiwar movement.
The progressive-caucus types criticize Obama on Afghanistan all the time. It's just that nobody cares, because Afghanistan is the concern of only 3% of Americans. And since nobody cares, there's no traction in the issue, hence they don't even try as hard as they might. If today 100 soldiers were dying per month, with the consequent blanket TV coverage of bombing and mayhem, you would see a lot more attention being paid to dissident Dem criticism. The headlines would be "Opposition to War Policies Mounts Within Obama's Own Party" and I suspect there would be a lot more street protests. Just like in 1966, when attention was paid to people like Fulbright, Church, McGovern.
A methodology point: I don't think Heaney took into account the possibility that protesters who denied having a party ID in 2009 might have called themselves Democrats back in 2006 when it seemed the Dems were antiwar. I could be wrong, though.
SA