http://www.kpbs.org/news/2012/may/25/Military-giving-more-money-obama-romney/ Military Giving More Money To Obama Than Romney Friday, May 25, 2012 By Beth Ford Roth Members of the U.S. military and Department of Defense employees are giving more money to President Obama's presidential campaign than Mitt Romney's, according to an analysis of campaign finance reports by USA Today. In fact, Obama is gaining military contributions at a 5-to-1 ratio to Romney. Which branch of the military is giving the most money to the candidates? According to USA Today: Army employees are the biggest source of military contributions to each: $108,571 to Obama and $22,004 to Romney. As Home Post reported last week, the president recently kicked off a campaign directly aimed at service members and veterans. The campaign, called "Veterans and Military Families for Obama," includes phone banks, news conferences, house parties - and most importantly, visits to critical swing states by Obama himself. Rob Diamond, New York state director of the Obama campaign, described the goal of "Veterans and Military Families for Obama" this way: "We're going to break down that mythology about the military voting history and the veteran voting history. There's a changing demographic out there and a changing military and this new voting pattern netted the president nearly 4 million votes [in 2008]." Is it working?
Because the soldiers I know are really eager to go fight yet another war. Also, Republicans occasionally trying to reform (read "cut") military retirement benefits, even while the Defense budget increases, really goes over well.
The problem with this analysis is that it conflates active military personnel with civilian DoD employees. There is absolutely no doubt that the officer level military personnel with vote for Romney.
Military always votes republican for true American Patriots like W. They don't vote for guys like kerry who just sat on an army base.
Is this title misleading or am I misunderstanding? The title indicates that the Military is funding Obama/Romney. But the article indicates that people who WORK for the military are the ones funding Obama/Romney, which is meaningless really. Those people have different types of incentives and motivations. Is the military, if as a seperate legal person/entity, even allowed to support one candidate or another?
You see, what happens when you try to communicate with other people is that you need to persuade them. This means presenting some sort of argument and even evidence. So all I know is that you, gwayneco, have no doubt that the officer level military personnel with (sic) vote for Romney. But why? What has Romney done (other than strangely and rather quietly align himself with neocons over the last many months) that would win support from officers? I have some former students who have become officers, and I'm in touch with them, and they do NOT speak very favorably of the neocons. In fact, there was some quote about "cannonfodder" and "pax americana fantasies" from one officer last time I spoke with him. So, I have doubts that these gentlemen will automatically vote for Romney somehow. Furthermore, even if this is largely DOD staff making campaign contributions, why wouldn't they support Romney? He wants to increase, I believe he has stated, the military budget, which is already the largest single slice of the federal budget. Why wouldn't they support his campaign overwhelmingly, to see more money in their budgets? But the data say they do not.
If you don't think that the officer class is mostly Republican leaning, then you really need to put down that crack pipe.
Of course they are. When you shout CUT TAXES! INCREASE MILITARY SPENDING (or more recently saying your won't cut military spending)!, you are going to make the officers happy. I don't really care who anybody funds for President. Why would my vote be swayed by the military?
haha I love the contradictions Ron Paul reciecves more military contributions than Obama, Romney and every other 2012 condidate COMBINED and everyone rolls their eyes at how meaningless that is, not to mention the liberals on this board laugh at it Obama beats Romney in military contributions and suddenly it's something to celebrate and take into consideration ...facepalm
It's not a contradiction at all. Most people expect Ron Paul or Mitt Romney to attract military voters. On the other hand, no one expects Obama to receive much in the way of military contributions... (Besides, most of us are rolling their eyes at Ron Paul for entirely different reasons.)
