Younger Military Families Closing Ranks Around Obama

By GottaLaff

Oh that wacky POW, Gramm-pa McCain. He just loves to go on and on about his own heroism and kinship with fellow military members. Well guess what, Grammps:

John McCain assumes he has the military vote -- but does he?

The Military Times recently released its annual survey of subscribers, which shows McCain-Palin enjoying a commanding lead over Obama-Biden (68/23 percent). But this is not a random sample, by any stretch of the imagination. Military Times subscribers are significantly older than the active military population. Nearly half of those surveyed are retirees, and minorities are under-represented.

"Everyone I talk to wants change but on base you can't say certain things. At a bar or a party, everyone tells me they're voting for Obama," said Thomas Singleton, 27, a former military telecommunications specialist who was speaking to OffTheBus outside the National Museum of the Marine Corps. [...]

"My military friends are tired of being lied to," said Singleton. "They're told to deploy for six months, but it ends up being a year. And when they come home, they can't find a job. One of my friends is staying in the Army only because he can't find a civilian job." [...]

People in all branches of the service are getting tired of repeated deployments. "I think more of them will vote for Obama than McCain," said [former marine corporal Dawn Jennings, 31]. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, deployed troops are putting their money where their mouth is: they've given four times as much money to Obama as McCain.

"Any assumption that the military vote is overwhelmingly in favor of the Republican Party -- based on demographics alone -- is suspect, at the very least," said Donald S. Inbody, a retired Navy Captain who is on the political science faculty at Texas State University. Inbody also is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas in Austin, where he is researching the political attitudes and behavior of the American military enlisted person.

[...]But now, at all levels of the military, there's a general dissatisfaction with the lousy leadership in Washington. Inbody told OffTheBus, "We know from several studies that the officer corps, especially senior officers, identify strongly with the Republican Party. But it is more likely that junior officers and enlisted personnel more nearly mirror the general American population when it comes to party identification and voting behavior."

This could result in a 1.2 to 1 advantage for Obama in military communities, according to Inbody, especially if the campaign "isn't tone deaf" to the inroads that are possible.

Noun. Verb. Young military families.