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If money talks, the troops are saying, ‘Vote Obama’

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Way back in September, we learned that Barack Obama and Ron Paul, who don’t have too much in common, were the top two presidential candidates when it came to financial support from U.S. troops.

It had a certain political salience — opponents of the war in Iraq took note of the fact that the top two recipients of military donations went to critics of the Bush policy — but it was still relatively early in the process. Would the trend continue once the race grew more competitive? Actually, yes.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported today that Obama has received six times as much money from the troops as John McCain.

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago

, has received more than four times McCain’s haul.

Despite McCain’s status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall — whether stationed overseas or at home — are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military, said, “That’s shocking. The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it’s about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one” in Democrats’ favor. “That represents a tremendous shift from 2000, when the military vote almost certainly was decisive in Florida and elsewhere, and leaned heavily towards the Republicans.”

That last point is especially striking. Eight years ago, Bush outraised Gore among military personnel almost 2 to 1. Four years ago, Kerry did better, but Bush raised $1.50 for every dollar Kerry raised.

And now the numbers have shifted to Obama, in a big way.

There are bound to be competing explanations for this shift, but the CRP report talked to one soldier who explained why he wrote a check for Obama.

Army Specialist Jay Navas contributed $250 while deployed in Iraq, but it wasn’t over the Internet. “It took some effort to get that check. I had my mom send me my checkbook and I walked to the post office in Camp Liberty in Baghdad with an envelope addressed to Barack Obama in Chicago, Illinois,” he said. “He was right on Iraq long when others were jumping into the sea like lemmings, and that’s hard to do. We’re soldiers and we respect courage.”

Only the Coast Guard prefers Democrats across the board, with 78 percent of employees’ total federal contributions going to members of that party, and Obama beating McCain $7,795 to $250. Navas anecdotally confirmed that soldiers are often conservative but that many are making an exception in the presidential race. “Most of my friends are conservative Republicans and they say, ‘I’m voting for Barack.’ McCain does not have a lock on the military vote, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ll complete our duty — I’m deploying next year — because it’s a commitment I made to the nation, not to a president. But we all know that Iraq was a big mistake.”

Comments

  • The Answer is Orange

    says:

    Not surprising. Despite the GOP desire for soldiers to be little more than props in their photo ops, those guys aren’t stupid. They know which candidate gives a FF about them now and after they come home. I suspect McCaniac’s prattle about 100 years and rationing healthcare for vets didn’t help.

    “He was right on Iraq long when others were jumping into the sea like lemmings, and that’s hard to do. We’re soldiers and we respect courage.”

    That sound you hear is fReichtard heads going off like claymore mines.

    Synchronize your watches. We’ll hear that Navas is a phony soldier terrorist and Scott Beauchamp’s boyfriend in 5…4…3…

  • FreeProton

    says:

    Mr. Orange @ #1: believe you me, we won’t hear shit. Not from the media, because (this is John McCain we’re talking about, mind you) Republicans are the guys who support the troops. Which means troops will never support Democrats. But never. Ever. Which means that soldiers supporting Obama six to one do not exist. Cannot exist. How can they exist when their existence is not possible?

    So, expect a resounding silence from the TV talking heads. Well, okay, maybe a rant from O’Reilly, but who watches that guy anymore?

  • Elvis Elvisberg

    says:

    Prof. Belkin conflates two issues– donations and voting. What percentage of voters donate? It has to be darn small. It could just be that a relatively small, heavily motivated group of Obama supporters in the military are donating.

    This is good news, of course, but let’s just wait and see how voting patterns change.

  • Skitso

    says:

    I guess the Florida Secretary of State will be misplacing a lot of absentee ballots from deployed soldiers this year.

  • Lance

    says:

    Elvis Elvisberg said: “This is good news, of course, but let’s just wait and see how voting patterns change.”

    You think maybe there is a reason the Bushties are making no effort to support getting voter registrations and ballots out to the troops?

    Obama will win the military vote, if we can get it counted.

  • William

    says:

    The change is because these days these poor people are on their n-th rotations with no end in sight. McCarnage wants blood; it’s not hard to see who has your best interests in mind. I think somehow the phrase “Stay there for a 100 years” might have inspired some of the generous support of the Democratic (and mentally balanced) candidate.

  • Cyan

    says:

    I’m having trouble reconciling the statement,

    …of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama,

    with a 6:1 ratio. The 6:1 ratio maps onto 86% donations to Obama and 14% donations to McCain.

    What’s going on here?

  • superdestroyer

    says:

    It is safe to say that white service members lean Republican. However, black service members are as Democratic as any other groups. It could be that the large number of black officers and senior NCO’s are contributing to Senator Obama because he is black.

  • Racer X

    says:

    Why, oh why, do the troops hate the troops?

    Don’t they know that Obama wants them to lose the war so he can win the election? Don’t they know that John McCain knows so much about the military that he’s already telling Bush how to start another war?

    BTW, a more devastating way to put those results is this:

    Of all the donations made by the troops, McCain got less than 9% of the donations, and less than 8% of the money.

    The man is not popular in the military.

  • Mike B-C

    says:

    Elvis Elvisberg spake: Prof. Belkin conflates two issues– donations and voting. What percentage of voters donate?

    The percentage is likely small, but why assume that the voting patterns of those who donate are different from those who don’t? I think it’s fairly likely that donors are a representative sample of the whole.

  • Prup (aka Jim Benton)

    says:

    Not only the troops, but I can’t wait to see Obama hit McCain on his votes against Veterans, and the Bush Administration’s kicking them in the teeth. Walter Reed, deliberately down-diagnosing PTSD, and the vote against the GI Bill, all will resonate when (not if) he uses them. Throw in letting skinheads and felons serve, but not gays — talk about disrupting morale, imagine if you are black or Jewish and you get a tattooed neo-Nazi in your group. If you shower with them, the pointy thing you might be afraid of isn’t attached to their body.

  • catclub

    says:

    How does CRP know where the donations come from?
    If I give, will it know the industry I work in?
    Will I not be allowed to give $25 unless I tell all about myself?

    Why couldn’t I lie? Could democratic donors be claiming to
    be military but NOT really??

    Who are the sheep? People who give honest answers when asked for information
    such as militray status, or CRP, which reports as though people tell the truth?

  • low-tech cyclist

    says:

    Steve, I’ve got to point out that you, ThinkProgress, and OpenSecrets.org are making a big deal about the contributions of 160 soldiers overseas, 134 of whom gave to Obama, and 26 of whom gave to McCain.

    That’s nice and all, but that’s out of 150,000 troops in Iraq, plus, what, another 100,000 or so in Afghanistan, Korea, Germany, and other places.

    How well this small, self-selected sample represents the opinions of the overseas troops in general is open to question.

  • Crust

    says:

    catclub, these numbers are based on donations over $200 (which is the cutoff for FEC reporting). So e.g. a donation of $25 would not be included in the totals. If smaller donations were included, the disparity would likely be even greater since Obama does better with small donations. It’s possible that some right wing civilian bloggers who consider themselves to be fighting the war on terror by writing about it may be lying and declaring themselves military, but I suspect the rate of misreporting is low overall.

  • ml johnston

    says:

    Remember Veterans residing in VA hospitals and VA nursing homes are not allowed to register to vote or vote this year as per the VA Administration’s May 2008 memo. I guess the Republicans are so worried they will not win that the practice of preventing voters the right to vote still continues.

  • phoebes in santa fe

    says:

    ml johnston@18 says, “Remember Veterans residing in VA hospitals and VA nursing homes are not allowed to register to vote or vote this year as per the VA Administration’s May 2008 memo.”

    Is that true???? How can the right to vote be denied ANY non-felonious citizen?

  • Chris

    says:

    I’m inclined to think that this isn’t actually as sharp of a vote-indicator as we’d like it to be. Those that care more strongly, that are most eager to get out of the war, would certainly be more likely to donate. Those that are satisfied with the status quo, though, would be less likely to use their hard-earned money to try to sway the situation.
    While this is obviously an astounding statistic, I doubt we’ll see anywhere close to a 6-to-1 voting disparity.

  • Michigoose

    says:

    As a vet (white, female, officer) from an elite unit (82nd Airborne Division) for most of my career, I can tell you that the military was never as solidly Republican as most pollsters would have you believe. The Repubs are in it for the military-industrial complex, the Dems for the soldiers. . . which doesn’t take very long for any of us to figure out. The senior officer corps (and NCO corps, for that matter) turn conservative for the same reason that senior business executives do–they’re looking after their retirement. I predicted a year ago that the military was going to go for the Dems in a very big way this election. But, then, I told everyone who would listen to me that there weren’t any WMD in Iraq back in 2002, and look where that got me. . .