Posted on 05/14/2012 6:38:42 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
According to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, veterans favor Obama over Romney by as much as seven percentage points. They favor cutting the defense budget. Read more...
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - Mack McDowell likes to spend time at the local knife and gun show "drooling over firearms," as he puts it. Retired after 30 years in the U.S. Army, he has lined his study with books on war, framed battalion patches from his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, a John Wayne poster, and an 1861 Springfield rifle from an ancestor who fought in the Civil War.
But when it comes to the 2012 presidential election, Master Sergeant McDowell is no hawk.
In South Carolina's January primary, the one-time Reagan supporter voted for Ron Paul "because of his unchanging stand against overseas involvement." In November, McDowell plans to vote for the candidate least likely to wage "knee-jerk reaction wars."
Disaffection with the politics of shock and awe runs deep among men and women who have served in the military during the past decade of conflict. Only 32 percent think the war in Iraq ended successfully, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. And far more of them would pull out of Afghanistan than continue military operations there.
While the 2012 campaign today is dominated by economic and domestic issues, military concerns could easily jump to the fore. Nearly 90,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan. Israeli politicians and their U.S. supporters debate over whether to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities as partisans bicker over proposed Pentagon budget cuts.
Mitt Romney has accused President Obama of "a dangerous course" in wanting to cut $1 trillion from the defense budget - although the administration's actual proposal is a reduction of $487 billion over the next decade.
"We should not negotiate with the Taliban," the former Massachusetts governor contends. "We should defeat the Taliban." He has blamed Obama for "procrastination toward Iran" and advocates arming Syrian rebels.
Romney, along with his primary rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, had also accused Obama of "appeasement" toward U.S. enemies - a charge that drew a sharp Obama rebuttal. "Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaeda leaders who've been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement," the president shot back. He has reproached GOP candidates: "Now is not the time for bluster."
If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population.
FADING COOL FACTOR
The GOP's heated rhetoric, aimed at the party's traditional hawks, might be expected to resonate with veterans. Yet in interviews in South Carolina, a military-friendly red state, many former soldiers expressed anger at the toll of a decade of war, questioned the legitimacy of George W. Bush's Iraq invasion, and worried that the surge in Afghanistan won't make a difference in the long run.
"We looked real cool going into Iraq waving our guns," said McDowell, 50, who retired from the 82d Airborne Division in November with a Legion of Merit and two Bronze Stars. "But people lost their lives, and it made no sense."
Now he worries. "I really don't like the direction we are going, how we seem to come closer daily towards a war with Iran."
In Columbia, where McDowell lives in a leafy subdivision, the streets are named for American Revolutionary war heroes, and the Confederate battle flag still flies on the capitol grounds. Pizza parlors offer a 10 percent discount to uniformed soldiers from nearby Fort Jackson, one of eight military bases that pump $13 billion a year into the state's economy.
In exit polls, a quarter of voters in January's primary identified themselves as veterans.
Among them were Karen and Kelly Grafton, devout Southern Baptists who live in the small town of Prosperity, outside Columbia, and spend their vacations at Nascar races. They voted for Santorum.
"He just came off a little bit better than the others," said Karen Grafton, 51, a real estate agent who served 20 years in the Air Force. "He stuck to his story about what he has done and what he will do."
The Graftons' votes, however, like many veterans', can't be taken as evidence of a hard-line military stance. Registered Republicans, they cast their ballots for Obama in 2008 because he promised to bring the troops home from Iraq.
"I went to war for George Bush," said Grafton, 48, a retired Army master sergeant who served in special operations units in Somalia and Iraq. "But we can't keep policing the world."
Karen Grafton, a retired Air Force recruiter, said she'll be "glad when we're out of Afghanistan." The military budget? "I'm sure it can be cut," she said. "Everyone has to make concessions." Still, many former soldiers worry that Pentagon cuts could mean stingier salaries, pensions, and education and housing benefits.
Not from what I hear from active military and veterans. Obambi is wholly scorned from top to bottom. Just where in the hell did they get this kind of data?
This sounds more like an anecdote than an actual news item.
Polls are now used to create public opinions.
I agree. Unfortunately, some of Romney's foreign policy advisers have a recent history that does not inspire great confidence either.
Right, so the ideal solution is to continue the trend we are on. Consistently gut the greatest defense in the world down to absolutely nothing, and allow the UN to "handle" Iran.
I swear, the selfishness and stupidity of some people is enough to make me vomit.
South Carolina, as well as most in the Active military, will go to the Republicans this November. This, despite the cherry-picked "interviews" of the Stalinist AssPress, is merely a handful of democrat @ssholes in the military, most of whom would sooner see America destroyed before allowing it to have a strong defense.
It’s not just the veterans. The American people are tired of fighting a war without seeing any end to it. Even Romans understood that a pro-longed war means defeat eventually. Democrats want to continue the war to protect the people that hate us. Congress needs to step up and stop this senseless BS. To accomplish that, we need to change Congress and rebuild our own country and let the sand bunnies do what they will. If they become a problem to us, take them out and get it over with.
Media BS or dumb troops? Tired of strained resources? Obama wants to cut more! Tired of war in the ME? Have you forgotten Libya?!
Give me break!
Yeah, why don’t they actually poll those of us who are active military or have family serving?
That's what I'm afraid is going to happen and the nation is then going to have to face some hard questions on the re-institution of a military draft. While American resources are great, our money and manpower is not unlimited.
I'm not military, but I don't believe this article for a second!
I figured this might happen once they loaded the ranks with homosexuals.
Exactly. The passions and emphasis may be different from the leftist establishment, but they're as fanatic in getting us into foreign entanglements as anybody.
Wait. Read the article again. I don’t see where even one of the quoted persons said they will vote for Obama. They used quotes to show that they hate the war and the direction we’re going but then quoted polls to try to make their case. What a crock.
I don’t know if I buy this, especially as Obama shows no particular tendency to keep the U.S. out of foreign wars.
Not being a veteran myself, I can’t really say much except that I do wonder if there aren’t some veterans who tire of our modern strategies, and would like us to either fight all-out or stay out in the first place.
The foreign policy bipartisan consensus have chosen endless war and nation building over the idea of punitive expeditions. Our Afghan involvement should have started the afternoon of 9/11/2001 and been over by the end of that year.
I volunteer at the local VA Hospital 2 times a week, and the VAST majority of veterans I speak with agree with me, that they will vote for "Anybody But Obama"!
In fact, the majority of black veterans won't vote for him either.
Did not know this was/is mittens position. Is it? If is disagree based on the devil one knows verses the devil one does not know.
the surge in Afghanistan won't make a difference in the long run
Surges do not work (imho) because the surges (alone) do not allow modification to ROEs whereby the enemy is destroyed. Without the accompaniment of the will to win thereby destroying whatever enters the path there is a no-win via a surge. Neither political party has had the win to win since WWII. Win-able wars have become unnecessary according to our elected otherwise winning would have been easy.
Whatever ‘they’ print, I will believe the opposite.
Those currently serving and the general population may be tired of the ‘war’, but decades later it will be our young who will pay the price.
A la Carter.
Polls and surveys are mostly useless.
Dallas is home to a number of reserve and guard groups - some guys "at work" tell now of going to Africa as a reserve unit...what's up with that?
Not sure how we solve the middle east problems, but Iraq was not done well - till GWB changed from a Pentagon based system into a "surge" from folks in the field. The pentagon guys are only too happy to send young people off to war; while they play golf at Andrews.
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