Military Vote No Longer a Lock For GOP

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4052.shtml

Since the Vietnam War, the military vote has marched en masse behind Republican political office-seekers, particularly those aiming to be the commander in chief.

With Democrats carrying a three-decade stigma of being "anti-military," America's uniformed personnel have shunned them for Republicans by a margin of 2 to 1, according to studies of the military vote overall.

President Bush owes a good measure of his close 2000 election win to the overseas GIs who voted absentee for him in Florida in numbers sufficient to give him that pivotal state.

But now, as Bush's re-election campaign accelerates, the military vote may be up for grabs more than at any other time in the recent past. At the very least, it is not an automatic lock for Republicans.

[bif]

1. If they vote for him again they're crazy

He's putting them in harm's way to further the profits for his corporate sponsors.

[jmowreader]

2. I said this months ago...good to see it's now in the press

Bush has three major, probably administration-ending problems of his own he has to overcome to get the military on his side: he's killed many hundreds of soldiers in a war he started for no good reason, he's working to eliminate their benefits, and he's screwed the economy so badly, even if they're allowed to separate from the service they won't be able to because there are no jobs.

Add to that the major, probably administration-ending problem the Democrats are introducing: the probable Democratic standardbearer is a brownwater sailor with the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with V Device, and three Purple Hearts, while Bush separated from the military a year early, as a 1LT, and under...uhh, let's say "questionable circumstances." (That's a nice way to say their boss is a practicing drunkard and a cokehead in remission who went AWOL for a year and got kicked off flight status because he disobeyed a direct order to report for a flight physical.)

You folks all know about my local paper, the Fayetteville Observer, "House Organ of Fort Bragg and the surrounding communities." It is unabashedly pro-military. It is very conservative. It is, on February 12, 2004, packed to the gills with anti-Bush and anti-Operation Iraqi Liberation articles. Including one in the military section (sadly, it is not in the online version) that rips Bush's case for war to shreds, and Molly Ivins' editorial which explains that the only justifiable reason for going to war in Iraq--that Saddam is a miserable SOB--is the one the Bushies said they wouldn't use. Add to that the online poll--"does capturing Saddam justify the war?"--that is leaning so far against Bush it's not funny. Something like 34 yes to 111 no. It's ugly.

Bush will lose the military vote because they tend to dislike people who go AWOL, especially ones who are presently trying to get them all killed and to screw the survivors out of their benefits; he will lose the working-man vote because he hates the working man; he will lose the mainstream-religious vote because he's not actually a Christian no matter what he says. He will lose the conservative vote because he's no conservative. If there is such a thing as a yellow-dog Republican, he'll lose them too because he spends money like a grounded Air National Guardsman with five grams of toot and directions to every bar in town. You can't win election if your base consists of people who think Westboro Baptist Church is a bit too liberal, hardcore white separatists, and Ann Coulter fans, and you've lost all of your support outside your base--that is Bush's problem right now, and