Thursday, April 15, 2004
The Nation Smells A Story
Katrina vanden Heuvel (hey, there's a cool name!) has some sharp observations about a gradual sea-change in the military political culture.
It may be anecdotal but three stories in last week's newspapers offer a sharp sense of the growing ambivalence military veterans and families feel toward this Administration. The once rock-solid GOP military voting bloc could become a domestic casualty for Bush. And, as the New York Times reports , with a large number of military personnel living in battleground states like Florida, West Virginia and New Mexico, even small changes in military voting patterns could be decisive in November.
"The President is on probation with military voters," says Peter Feaver, professor of Political Science at Duke University and an expert on military-civilian relations.
She's probably onto something--and it's a trend I noticed last year among hundreds of mobilized registered Florida voters in Iraq.
A year and a half ago, support for George Bush in my Florida Guard unit was overwhelming. And very few soldiers voiced scepticism about the U.S. decision to go to war to depose Saddam Hussein, overall. They were as eager to see the guy get taken down as anyone, and by and large, more than willing to be a part of that process. My sense was that at the time we were mobilized, support for the decision to go to war in Iraq probably ran 70-20-10 in the enlisted ranks, and even stronger than that among officers.
Support for the Bush policy took an abrupt flip on its head around September, though, when the expected rotation home by December 7th was announced null and void, and we were told we were going to spend a year 'boots-on-the-ground.'
Morale plummeted in the ranks, Bush supporters pretty much held their tongues to avoid pissing off the newly minted (and fully-armed) anti-Bush zealots, and had Terry McAuliffe paid a visit to us at Hurricane Point in Ramadi, he could have raised thousands in donations to Democratic coffers.
Support for Democrats in the ranks was further buttressed by the actions of Senator Bill Nelson, who was very public very early on about calling for equitable treatment of Guard and Reserve soldiers, and made a point to tour the State talking to the families of over 1,500 deployed National Guardsmen.
My sense is that the pendulum swung back towards normal with the passage of time. I wouldn't overstate the issue at a national level, and the phenomenon may have been more pronounced in Guard and reserve units, which suffered from lower morale than active duty units throughout the conflict.
But there's also no getting around the fact that such a large percentage of the mobilized guardsmen in OIF I (Operation Iraqi Freedom I, or the first rotation) do indeed come from Florida--the most hotly contested of all the battleground states.
Florida's even more important in 2004 than it was in 2000, because the winner in Florida gets 27 votes in the electoral college instead of just 25.
So from this soldier's perspective, vanden Heuvel's instincts are correct. Republicans can no longer count on the military demographic as reliable votes--at least to the extent they once could.
Splash, out
Jason
P.S., You know there's no Army or Marine Corps veterans in The Nation's editorial offices, though, or they wouldn't have mentioned the "Army's 225th Battalion."
"225th Battalion" makes absolutely no sense. Fortunately, The Nation provides a link to the unit: It's the Army's 225th FORWARD SUPPORT Battalion. Which conveys a lot more information, and is the proper way to refer to the unit.
Just another example of how a little newsroom diversity can provide a little insulation against looking stupid.
It may be anecdotal but three stories in last week's newspapers offer a sharp sense of the growing ambivalence military veterans and families feel toward this Administration. The once rock-solid GOP military voting bloc could become a domestic casualty for Bush. And, as the New York Times reports , with a large number of military personnel living in battleground states like Florida, West Virginia and New Mexico, even small changes in military voting patterns could be decisive in November.
"The President is on probation with military voters," says Peter Feaver, professor of Political Science at Duke University and an expert on military-civilian relations.
She's probably onto something--and it's a trend I noticed last year among hundreds of mobilized registered Florida voters in Iraq.
A year and a half ago, support for George Bush in my Florida Guard unit was overwhelming. And very few soldiers voiced scepticism about the U.S. decision to go to war to depose Saddam Hussein, overall. They were as eager to see the guy get taken down as anyone, and by and large, more than willing to be a part of that process. My sense was that at the time we were mobilized, support for the decision to go to war in Iraq probably ran 70-20-10 in the enlisted ranks, and even stronger than that among officers.
Support for the Bush policy took an abrupt flip on its head around September, though, when the expected rotation home by December 7th was announced null and void, and we were told we were going to spend a year 'boots-on-the-ground.'
Morale plummeted in the ranks, Bush supporters pretty much held their tongues to avoid pissing off the newly minted (and fully-armed) anti-Bush zealots, and had Terry McAuliffe paid a visit to us at Hurricane Point in Ramadi, he could have raised thousands in donations to Democratic coffers.
Support for Democrats in the ranks was further buttressed by the actions of Senator Bill Nelson, who was very public very early on about calling for equitable treatment of Guard and Reserve soldiers, and made a point to tour the State talking to the families of over 1,500 deployed National Guardsmen.
My sense is that the pendulum swung back towards normal with the passage of time. I wouldn't overstate the issue at a national level, and the phenomenon may have been more pronounced in Guard and reserve units, which suffered from lower morale than active duty units throughout the conflict.
But there's also no getting around the fact that such a large percentage of the mobilized guardsmen in OIF I (Operation Iraqi Freedom I, or the first rotation) do indeed come from Florida--the most hotly contested of all the battleground states.
Florida's even more important in 2004 than it was in 2000, because the winner in Florida gets 27 votes in the electoral college instead of just 25.
So from this soldier's perspective, vanden Heuvel's instincts are correct. Republicans can no longer count on the military demographic as reliable votes--at least to the extent they once could.
Splash, out
Jason
P.S., You know there's no Army or Marine Corps veterans in The Nation's editorial offices, though, or they wouldn't have mentioned the "Army's 225th Battalion."
"225th Battalion" makes absolutely no sense. Fortunately, The Nation provides a link to the unit: It's the Army's 225th FORWARD SUPPORT Battalion. Which conveys a lot more information, and is the proper way to refer to the unit.
Just another example of how a little newsroom diversity can provide a little insulation against looking stupid.
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