The Shifting Military Vote
Perhaps Dec. 8, 2004 was the day – the point where the “military vote” started peeling off from the Republican Party, for which it had been steadfastly true in majority numbers for at least 25 years. It was the day Army Spc.Thomas Wilson asked then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: “Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?”
To which Rumsfeld replied, “As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want …”You can have all the armor in the world on a tank, and it can [still] be blown up.”
The right wing talkers, true to form, turned on the young man, calling him a tool of the journalist embedded with his unit — though Wilson’s question was met by whoops and cheers from the 2,300 military men and women in Rumsfeld’s audience at the Kuwaiti staging area that day. Apparently “support the troops,” didn’t extend to those exercising the First Amendment rights they were supposedly fighting for — but no mind — the message was broadcast as clear as a reveille: you are on your own. 
Since then, we’ve heard about moldy walls and neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the systematic flaws in veterans’ mental health care, the enormous backlogs at the VA, the resistance by the Pentagon to pay disability to injured service members, the 15-month deployments, the abuse by contractors putting troops in the field at risk, the petty way soldiers are treated by the military when they return (like having to pay for their damaged clothes and equipment!) and the (unsuccessful) refusal of the Bush Administration — and John McCain — to pass a veteran-supported GI Bill package, leaving Democrats like Sen. Jim Webb to take the credit when it was finally approved.
Still, discerning where the military community is at politically is a fuzzy and perhaps futile exercise at this point — mostly because the military vote (which would include present members of the Armed Forces and veterans) is so 2004 , and no one has seriously polled this dynamic voting population ahead of today’s election. According to the 2004 exit polling, 18 percent of voters had served in the military. That didn’t include the thousands of absentee ballots from overseas.
There are small signs, however, that six years at war, under an ill-defined, mismanaged foreign policy that relies on the constant, indefinite rotation of less than one-half percent of the nation’s total population has altered, however subtly, the Republican Party’s grip on the military voting culture.
For one, as of August, Barack Obama was clobbering John McCain in donations from active duty military — in fact, men and women serving abroad gave Obama nearly six times more than his opponent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Republican Ron Paul did even better than McCain with such donations — leading one to wonder how two men who had opposed the war were generating more enthusiasm among soldiers than the man whose presidential campaign had been built around his time as a POW in Vietnam and as a singular champion of the 2007 Surge into Baghdad.
This is perhaps not entirely suprising — a poll taken almost a year ago found that only 37 percent of military and their families approved of President Bush’s policy in Iraq, a huge turnaround from just two years before, when twice as many had sided with the President on the war.
To be fair, there have been at least two stabs at assessing this sleeping giant since early summer. Gallup found that veterans still associate themselves more with the Republican Party in numbers similar to 2004, when they voted for George Bush over John Kerry, 57 to 41 percent (Gallup notes this is a group that McCain and the Republicans already fare well with — older white males). Veterans told Gallup they are supporting McCain over Obama, 56 to 34 percent. Furthermore, a Military Times poll in early October found that among present and former subscribers to the Military Times‘ magazines, the majority were going strong for McCain over Obama, 66 to 25 percent.
But other things emerged from these studies. Overall, according to one comparison of previous Military Times surveys, GOP affiliation among senior members of the military — the most typically Republican block — had actually declined from over 60 percent in 2003 to 47 percent in 2007 (there was not a corresponding increase for the Democrats, however).
Despite McCain’s obvious advantage in this poll, it still represents a 10 percent increase for the Democrat (John Kerry had only scored 15 percent of the vote among Military Times respondents in 2004). Sure, surveys suggest as the number of women and minorities have increased in the active duty, Democratic support has been buoyed. But that’s not the only reason for the slight uptick among the military for Obama.
“This indicates that the increased support for the Democratic presidential candidate among members of the Army is due to both a shift of the Army’s traditional voting block away from the Republican Party as well as an infusion of new, predominantly minority voters into the Democratic column,” said Jeremy Dempsey, author and Army infantryman, who points out that of the active duty respondents who shifted to Obama in the recent Military Times poll, 95 percent were male and 55 percent white.
Overall, veterans have been exceedingly more vocal in their opposition to the war policy and in defense of veterans’ issues since 2004, like Paul Rieckoff and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and individuals like Kevin Creed, a lifelong Republican who at the age of 51 came out of retirement to serve as an Army Major in Iraq.
“On the day that President Bush flew onto that aircraft carrier and declared ‘Mission Accomplished,’ [May 1, 2003],” Creed said, “I was in a command bunker outside Baghdad with dust flying all over the place from the explosions blasting over our heads. When we heard that Bush had said ‘Mission Accomplished,’ all the soldiers in the bunker laughed. This was the beginning of my asking, ‘Hey, what’s happening here? Something isn’t right.’”
May 1, 2003 was Creed’s “day,” and who knows how many others have had similiar epiphanies. They may not be heading up a “Connecticut Veterans for Obama” group like Creed, but it’s not clear they’ll be casting a vote for the Republican today, either. There might be a kind of “spiral of silence” among military voters that Leon Hadar had referred to in his recent post. What we can say with some confidence, is that like the conservatives who populate these and other kindred weblogs, there are military voters who feel stung by their own loyalty to the Republican Party, too, who consider independence the true path to change — whatever that might be tomorow.
MUST SEE:
Dear Mr. Obama
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7699509.stm
http://rightklik.blogspot.com/
I do not believe that military members are becoming Democrats. I served for 23 years and my politics matured, but never really deviated from the principles of Constitutional government. I believe what happened is the Republican Party stopped flirting with constitutionalism, and the southern Democratic wing of that party was unceremoniously killed off. Ron Paul was a huge benefactor of military largess and he most closely represents the majority of conversations I heard over the years during my time in service. It is time to bring my brothers and sisters in arms home from the 130 countries they serve in, and the politician (or even better statesman) who does that will win the votes of those who swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.
While useful as a propaganda tool, alleging Democrats are un-American is an unrepentant fraud.
At issue here is whether wars of international intervention are worth the blood and treasure. Most modern administrations have thought so–and take pride in having brought “home the bacon” in the form of mineral and material resources won through force of arms–all cloaked in a rubric of “just war”, “anti-communism”, and now “anti-terrorist.” To those men the body counts of foreign nationals mean very little. That expansion creates losers, too, both domestic and abroad, means even less–so long as the “winners” continue to open up their veins to drive acquisitiveness and “profit” through military aggression and international adventures in arms.
I’ve never bought the idea that the majority of the military voted for Republicans. It’s been many years since I served but when I was in during the early Reagan years an actor who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground about the military was considered a damn poor choice for CIC. But then again I was in a rather elite unit of soldiers who all had GT scores over 120.
Simple….The Military is becoming less white. They recruit hard in poorer latino and black areas and taking in more foreign recruits that eventually are made citizens…Add that to a few soldiers who actually look and see how their Republican overlords have treated them and used them as a literal and figurative bullet shield the last 8 years with no sense of coherent direction from the top. Remember military people… Keep all records, all receipts, and document and photo all injuries because the DoD and VA will have a huge medical bill in the coming decades because of these wars, and if given an opportunity to “lose” your information, claim pre-exhisting injuries, or any other way to deny your benefits they will shove you to the curb if you let them. Remember Gulf War Syndrome? Well I hope this round of Gulf War Syndrome isnt anywhere near as bad as this Gulf War.
Mike, Terrible, optimist,
Truth be told, most military voters are the same as civilian American voters. They vote for either Corporate Candidate A or Corporate Candidate B, which are the Republican and the Democratic wings of the War Party. They, like their civilian counterparts, can’t find their own butts with both hands when it comes to voting. No intelligent person who dislikes the Bush/Cheney agenda could have voted for either John McCain or Barack Obama. Both men campaigned on Bush’s platform and his policies, and the proof of that will be 24-36 months from now, American will still be fighting the Afghan, Iraq, and Pakistan Wars with the strong possibility of fightin a war with Iran. In other words, they will find out that having voted for Obama, they have voted for more of the same, Corporate Dominance and Endless, Perpetual War…..
Jason, Mike, Terrible, optimist,
I would also like to add that Senator’s McCain and President-Elect Obama were instrumental in helping Bush pass the single most destructive policy agenda in modern world history. Witness the below policies and actions that Bush has enacted/signed into law that Obama and McCain both vigorously supported and helped pass in the U.S. Senate:
700 BILLION DOLLAR Wall Street Bailout for crooked CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Bankers-both McCain and Obama lobbied and VOTED FOR IT.
War on Terror, Afghan and Iraq Wars which are killing innocent civilians by the thousands – both Senator McCain and President-Elect Obama voted to continue funding them
FISA/illegal spying on Americans Bill-Both Obama and McCain voted for it
Renewed Unconstitutional Patriot Act- Both McCain and Obama voted for it
Amendment aimed at Capping credit Card Interest Rates at 30 percent-Both McCain and Obama voted AGAINST IT. ( I wonder if we can find any Americans who will tell you with a straight face that they would rather pay 40 percent interest or more on a credit card vice a cap of 30 percent)
Death Penalty-Both Obama and McCain support it
As you can see, unless you actually support this agenda, there is ABSOLUTELY NO LOGIC TO HAVING VOTED FOR EITHER BARACK OBAMA OR JOHN McCAIN. Just goes to show you that no matter if the voter is military or civilian, the end result is always the same, AMERICANS end up voting against THEIR OWN POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC INTERESTS.
I served for 23 years between active duty, Guard and Reserve and I started out fairly far to the Right, but as the years went by and the Right became more and more a movement of “fundamentalist Christians” I drifted away.
I was very happy to vote for Obama. We definately needed a major change from the direction of the last 8 years, but Obama is far from a radical Leftisit. Unless you’ve been drinking the Fox News kool-aid for too long.
I come from a Christian fundamentalist family and we are just horrified by what has been going on. But then again, we live in Australia and our extended family has had over three generations of experience with the wars in Europe and SE Asia. These people promoting the war are anything but Christian. On the issues of substance to most people at home – education, fair wages, healthcare, just war (versus resource/wars for profit) – they never take up the religious imperative to pursue justice and truth. They are ‘religious’ but not godly. We need to see these charlatans for what they really are – and even if we do – I doubt they will change their tune. The only real thing I can think of which will scare them is to simply give up .. otherwise we’re just the cannonfodder who conveniently breed more boys for them to send to war.
Rick98C,
You did read the post above did you not? Oh, wait. You are right. We did need a change. Oh, wait again. There was bound to be change somewhere, remember, Bush and Cheney could not run for a third term……………Yes, Rick, there will be a change. A change in White House occupants.
Miriam,
Horrified? That is only the half of it. Join the club. But that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is that all the suckers who voted for Obama seriously think in their minds that change of a significant order is coming even though Obama’s actual voting record says otherwise. Barack Obama campaigned on Bush’s platform and his helped enact his policies and people are still foolish enough to think that he is the opposite of Bush and will “change things”.
Our troops in both wars in the mideast should be able to fight the good fight and leave with victory, not defeat and shame. We have put to much blood into this conflict to stop now. Obama’s true self will emerge very soon, and our nation will never be the same again. After he’s finished with out military, and the american people, I dont believe america will elect another black man for 100 yrs……………………….
Cliff,
Your post was nearly entirely nonsensical. “Too much blood to stop now”? Really? Have you considered the fact that the blood you’re so willing to continue to shed is not your own? You are sitting comfortably at home while this war goes on and on and on. The last two sentences make me cringe to think both you and I call ourselves Americans. You sound like a scared old man, afraid of the big jigaboo. Hide the white women! What deep, dark fear you must harbor in your withered old soul. Sentiments like yours make me physically sick. I’m not suggesting you don’t have the right to spew them – we all enjoy that right thanks mainly to our military, whose lives we should never trade so people like you are spared from feeling shame. Maybe you should; I certainly don’t. America has made mistakes but I’m proud to be American. Do you think our freedoms are seriously threatened by ending our involvement in Iraq? I do not. This is just my opinion. Times are a’ changin’, my friend…
Obama is the president elect, the general officers and pentagon will follow his orders. I hope that the Obama adnministration improves medical and mental health care for returning vets, and inspires more citizens to join the military. The DoD will need to do budget cuts and improve efficiency, and hopefully will move to rely a lot less on private contactors.
The military can do a better job at making itself a good career option, especially given these hard employment times for young graduates of high school and college.
I think that we can all pretty much assume the army is not for cutting and running so they are not Democrats. However these soldiers are tired of the wars and the party that is responsible for these wars is the Republicans. It is no surprise their numbers have dropped off. However once again a Republican will win them overwhelmingly this election.
[...] PS – so, they can: 1. Bring people back form the dead; 2. Zoom through space at Whotsit to the power of 7 meters per second; 3. Disintegrate an entire planet’s surface and/or target one species and all it’s products with self-replicating nano-bots; But, BUT, they can’t terraform another planet? Give us a few tips? Send us a note before now? Wear a bullet-proof vest? (I guess you destroy a planet with the invasion force you have, not the invasion force you want) [...]
Bush did not declare mission accomplished. That sign was put on the USS Abraham Lincoln by the ship, not Bush, and it was a declaration that their mission was accomplished. I am tired of people using that to beat up Bush. You see, when 9/11 happened, the USS Lincoln was on it’s way home to Everett, WA (I live in Seattle, so I know the facts here). Instead of coming home, the ship was redirected due to the terror attack. When they finally did return home, Bush greeted them, which was great. Big welcome home. The mission accomplished sign was theirs, not Bush’s. Bush did declare that day the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and if you recall shock and awe, it WAS the end of that operation.
[...] population has altered, however subtly, the Republican Party