The U.S. military overwhelmingly supports John McCain over Barack Obama in the presidential election. The results are wider than one would have imagined.
The American military supports John McCain by a 3-1 margin over Obama, 68%-23%. The poll was conducted by the Military Times.
The results are interesting in that they represent no change from the past, according to Peter Feaver, a former member of the National Security Council:
“The military has been perceived as a conservative Republican institution. A lot of people thought that eight years of frustration with the Bush administration was going to undermine that. This evidence suggests that it hasn’t undermined it as much as they thought, at least not yet.”
The results are even more astounding when one considers that results are polarized along racial lines. Black military personnel support Obama by about 80%, much less than the black electorate as a whole but clearly enough to skew the statistics. Among white military personnel, John McCain is supported by over 90% of the poll. This data suggests that Barack Obama is seen as the “black candidate” among the men and women in uniform.
As Barack Obama rails against the Iraq mission on behalf of “the troops,” it turns out that the Iraq War is only the 3rd most important issue to our military. The second most important voting issue is the economy. So what do our men and women in uniform care about the most?
According to the poll, the most important consideration for election a presidential candidate is character. The American military believes that character matters in a commander in chief, and those brave voters support John McCain by a 3-1 margin.
