Personally, I think attaching base closures to votes on matters of other principle is just as bad as the vote-trading on nominees. Actually, thinking about it, it's even worse.
And being in Maine, and knowing how important these bases are to the local economy, as a conservative I generally prefer that employment exist at the pleasure of the private sector.
If the military and its support system can be streamlined, and that involves base closures, then them's the breaks. As a taxpayer, I want the military to balance expenditure and might.
Put another way, if we're willing to pay even higher taxes, we could not only keep all these bases open, we could open new bases, one in every town! And give everybody a job!!! Woohooo!! Not ;-)
I don't think that the base closures are political in nature, but when somone is appealing one, then I would assume and know that if it was me that I would tend to be more sympathetic towards people who actually vote with me than to those who consistently knife me in the back!
Just the nature of the situation. Costs in Maine for the military may be to high to be practical. It's hard to say. I can't imagine that anyone that is losing a base is happy about it. But someone has to lose. Indiana went to Bush approching 70% and we still lost some bases, but over all did pretty well. So if it were all politics, we should not have lost anything! IMO