I was reading Tal's post about 6 Iraq War vets running on the Democratic ticket and it reminded me of this post over at Poliblog (which I think was actually quoting from another blog). It struck me that just because vets have tended to run as Republicans in the past, does not necessarily mean that Iraq War Veterans will follow suit. Shortly before reading the original post at PoliBlog, I watched Fahrenheit 911 (I know, by no means a neutral source). In the movie, Michael Moore interviewed several Iraq war vets who said that they had always voted Republican but that they would vote Democrat from now on. It struck me that the political tide might be shifting in terms of vets and their party affiliation due to the current war (especially since many vets of this war are actually guardsmen not full-time service men), but I suppose only time will tell for sure. I'm glad to see, however, that at least some vets are proving the stereotype wrong and running as Democrats.
Note: I'm not even comfortable with going on record as completely agreeing with the original assumption that vets run as Republicans since Kerry, JFK & Truman were all vets and Democrats. There are, of course, many examples of Republican vets as well. I just think that it is not safe to assume that vets will automatically support one party or the other. I'm curious if there is a difference between the politcal affiliation of short term service men compared to life-long service men. I'd guess there probably is.
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That's a good question. My guess is that careerist probably are more GOP-prone than short-termers.
And you raise a point about veterans running. There is probably a closer bipartisan split there. It is the case, however, that vets do vote more Rep in the aggregate.
And I would draw no more conclusions from F911 than I would from sampling callers to Limbaugh.
Well there are more Democratic veterans elected to the U.S. Congress than Republicans.
I didn't know that. Where did you find the stats on that? I'd love to see them.
Your blog and Tal's blog raise another observation: whenever anyone makes predictions or commentary about the 2008 election, no one ever mentions how the vet/active duty/reserve vote will play a role. I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that there is a strong inclination for servicepersons and former servicepersons to vote in strong numbers--when I was serving it was all but mandatory to vote. I do not have the numbers on it yet, but they may very well add an interesting spin to things.
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