Corps Voters - AWOL losing the military and national security vote

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0311.wallace-wells.html

<snip>

Six months ago, that patriotic support extended to President Bush and the Republican Party. This section of coastal Carolina is staunch GOP territory, with Rush Limbaugh on the radio and flag decals--American mostly, but a few confederate--on the back of the pick-up trucks. "That's the recent tradition here--being a patriot and supporting the military means being a Republican," says Lockwood Phillips, publisher of the Jacksonville Daily News and conservative host of the local political call-in show. The Third Congressional District, which includes Jacksonville, gave President Bush a 23-percent margin over Al Gore in 2000, and even favored Bob Dole over Bill Clinton by 15 percent in 1996. Six months ago, you simply didn't hear anything against Bush in Jacksonville, and if people had doubts about the war in Iraq, they kept them to themselves. But these attitudes have begun to change. The local newspaper's editorial board, which has been vocally pro-Bush throughout his administration, ran an editorial at the beginning of October criticizing the administration's policies on Iraq, and suggesting that the campaign could end in a Vietnam-like quagmire. Soldiers' wives ask reporters why their husbands are still being sent off to Iraq, to face car bombs and chaos, months after the president said the war was over. Returned reservists, who saw their return dates pushed back again and again while they sat in a chaotic war zone, call the same radio station to say they didn't sign up for this sort of treatment, and they won't be reenlisting. If pressed, most people you talk to around here still say they'll support Bush. But their faith in him, and the GOP powers in Washington, has been rattled. "I'm a strong Republican, but the Republicans have been the problem; we've been treated like second-class citizens," a retired Vietnam Marine helicopter gunnery sergeant named Don Beaver told me in North Carolina. Elsie P. Smith, the town's Republican mayor, says: "There's a few people who have become very hostile . . . the longer the war goes on, the more of that subtle shift you're going to see."

This subtle distancing of Republicans from Bush has begun to show up, locally and nationally, even among those conservative politicians who spent this administration's first two years hugging the president as if their political future depended solely on the strength of their grip. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr, (R-N.C.), Jacksonville's man in Congress, has joined other pro-military conservatives in stepping out of line with House leaders and criticizing the administration's policies towards veterans; Jones has said the administration treats vets like "second-class citizens." Conservative Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) led vocal Republican opposition to the administration's $87 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq in September, a move which found conservative allies from Sen. Kay Bouley Hutchinson (R-Texas) to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). House majority whip Roy Blount (R-Mo.) has taken the administration to task over its troop-rotation policies.

A similar mood is emerging in small, patriotic towns around the country. According to a study conducted in mid-October by Stars and Stripes, half of American soldiers in-country say their units have low morale, that they were insufficiently trained, and that they won't reenlist. The ubiquity of email in Iraq means that husbands, wives, families, and friends of these troops have a mainline to these gripes, and to the day-to-day grit and threat of combat, that they haven't had in previous wars. Holly Rossi, whose husband, Rob, is an Army reserve engineer out of Londonderry, N.H., has watched the Family Support Group for his unit, wives who started the war as staunch pro-Bush patriots, come to doubt the political mission. "A lot of people feel tugged. We have built our lives around ... patriotism no matter what, but we're feeling very abandoned." Charles Carter, a retired Naval chief petty officer, told Knight Ridder: "I will vote non-Republican in a heartbeat if it continues as is."

Carter's opinion is representative. While the GOP hasn't lost the military vote, if present trends continue, it could see substantial defections in one of its core constituencies. Even small numbers can swing an election. Almost all observers concede that heavily Republican overseas ballots, with much of the margin coming from military personnel, handed Florida, and the presidency, to Bush in 2000. Some of the most closely contested states in the last election have the most dense populations of military voters: Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, Nevada. But beyond the military voter is an even larger electoral bloc: tens of millions of "national security voters," who are not themselves necessarily connected to the military, but who judge a president's capacity to defend the country by how well he treats the troops, and by how much the troops support him.

[Cha]

1. The Dems need to be clear in their support

for our Military ..Before During and After they do their Duty! :kick:

[rfranklin]

2. Almost 100% certain that Bush will...

pull some PR stunt at the last minute and bamboozle the military once again--it could be another terrorist attack, another invasion, or even a generous pay raise. But dollars to donuts its gonna be perpetrated just prior to the election (so-called.)

[bluestateguy]

3. Make it as easy as possible for military personell to vote

What were we thinking in 2000?

[tom_paine]

4. If only voting mattered in Imperial Amerika

I pray I am wrong, but I think the Busheviks have perfected many strategies of ballot blocking and ballot stuffing, some subtle, like amking sure Democratic districts get the crappiest voting machines to the entire Florida Plan which actually comprised several ops.

And when Imperial Stalinist Touchscreen Voting is in place throughout the Empire, the Busheviks won't even have to get off their asses to rig the vote to exactly what they want.

I hope I am wrong.

[0rganism]

5. October Surprise coming right up

Nothing like a terrorist attack or a pre-emptive invasion to bump up the support numbers. Since each such event has a diminished effect, both in strength and duration, it'll have to happen fairly close to the election this time. For instance, W's post-911 bump had enough coattails to carry the 2002 election, but his Iraqataq bounce didn't even last 6 months. Going with the implicit geometric model, the next incident will only last 3, and the one after it perhaps but a single month.

Have your umbrellas ready.

[teryang]

6. Less than 10 percent of Federal overseas ballots

...in the Florida 2000 absentee ballot count. The ballot vote was lopsided because much of it was illegal and void ballots which were counted anyway ( including a couple of thousand )by the stupid Leon County judges. These Judges' decisions alone would have given the election to Gore. Gore chose not to appeal. Big mistake. Their opinion said the Democratic campaign hadn't shown fraud.

An improperly executed or delivered ballot is void. You don't have to show fraud. Gore chose not to appeal. Big mistake. Most of these ballots probably came from ALF communities of elderly. The ballots were delivered without registration numbers in the hundreds by Republican political operatives including one "retired" CIA agent. The operatives filled in the voter registration numbers in the election office after being given access to voter records.

[TacticalPeek]

7. Another:

A Component in a Perfect Storm in 04