A Component in a Perfect Storm in '04. [View All]

[TacticalPeek]

Washington Monthly November 2003

Corps Voters

For over two decades, the bond between the GOP and the U.S. military has been getting stronger. Since the invasion of Iraq, that may be changing.

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells

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This subtle distancing of Republicans from Bush has begun to show up, locally and nationally, even among those conservative politicians who spent this administration's first two years hugging the president as if their political future depended solely on the strength of their grip. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr, (R-N.C.), Jacksonville's man in Congress, has joined other pro-military conservatives in stepping out of line with House leaders and criticizing the administration's policies towards veterans; Jones has said the administration treats vets like "second-class citizens." Conservative Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) led vocal Republican opposition to the administration's $87 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq in September, a move which found conservative allies from Sen. Kay Bouley Hutchinson (R-Texas) to Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). House majority whip Roy Blount (R-Mo.) has taken the administration to task over its troop-rotation policies.

A similar mood is emerging in small, patriotic towns around the country. According to a study conducted in mid-October by Stars and Stripes, half of American soldiers in-country say their units have low morale, that they were insufficiently trained, and that they won't reenlist. The ubiquity of email in Iraq means that husbands, wives, families, and friends of these troops have a mainline to these gripes, and to the day-to-day grit and threat of combat, that they haven't had in previous wars. Holly Rossi, whose husband, Rob, is an Army reserve engineer out of Londonderry, N.H., has watched the Family Support Group for his unit, wives who started the war as staunch pro-Bush patriots, come to doubt the political mission. "A lot of people feel tugged. We have built our lives around ... patriotism no matter what, but we're feeling very abandoned." Charles Carter, a retired Naval chief petty officer, told Knight Ridder: "I will vote non-Republican in a heartbeat if it continues as is."

Carter's opinion is representative. While the GOP hasn't lost the military vote, if present trends continue, it could see substantial defections in one of its core constituencies. Even small numbers can swing an election. Almost all observers concede that heavily Republican overseas ballots, with much of the margin coming from military personnel, handed Florida, and the presidency, to Bush in 2000. Some of the most closely contested states in the last election have the most dense populations of military voters: Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, Nevada. But beyond the military voter is an even larger electoral bloc: tens of millions of "national security voters," who are not themselves necessarily connected to the military, but who judge a president's capacity to defend the country by how well he treats the troops, and by how much the troops support him.

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Corps Voters

"I will vote non-Republican in a heartbeat if it continues as is."

Interesting article. Wish Clark would get his campaign hitting on more cylinders soon. There's potential here.