Forget NASCAR Dads, soccer moms, office-park dads, and just about every other targeted political sub-group you’ve heard about. The trend I’m watching this fall is the military vote.
This has been simmering for months, but it’s becoming a full-blown phenomenon. Consider the USA Today op-ed from James Webb, secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, Benjamin Wallace-Wells’ Washington Monthly article, and the scathing Army Times editorial from last summer.
Soldiers in Iraq have faced cuts in their imminent danger pay and family separation allowances. The Bush administration has also cut funding for military housing, the military’s construction budget, veterans’ health benefits, and funds to schools for children of soldiers. Most importantly, the president has sent thousands of troops into harm’s way without justification and under false pretenses.
The troops and their families have noticed — and they’re really unhappy about it.
With this in mind, be sure to read William Douglas’ article about how and why Bush has alienated the military vote this year.
President Bush is seeking re-election as a “war president” whose decisive leadership steered the military to victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. But as guerrilla warfare drags on in both countries, casualties mount and the Army is stretched ever thinner, many voters in or affiliated with the military are no longer saluting the commander in chief.
The article finds soldiers, veterans, and their families — nearly all of whom backed Bush in 2000 — concluding that they won’t make the same mistake twice.
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or evidence that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, lengthy deployments of active-duty soldiers and reservists and proposed cuts in veterans’ benefits and perks to military families are threatening to erode Bush’s once-strong support among military voters.
In the 2000 presidential election, absentee military ballots from overseas helped deliver the narrow margin of victory that sent Bush into the White House. So even a small defection of current and retired military people and their dependents could spell trouble for Bush in 2004.
“I think President Bush has an electoral edge despite the fact that Senator (John) Kerry has a better military service record,” said Loren Thompson, the chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a conservative Washington think tank. “That said, the prolonged tours of duty, the unexpected intensity (of the war) and the way reservists are being deployed are working against the president. There is a lot of resentment in the ranks about the level of commitment demanded of the reserves, particularly among the families.”
A bipartisan “Battleground” poll of likely voters conducted in September found that Bush’s approval rating among relatives of military personnel was only 36 percent. Family members upset by Bush’s policy on Iraq are venting through Web sites and public protests.
It won’t hurt that the Dems are running a combat hero who served valiantly in a war Bush supported but avoided.