Will veterans and members of the armed forces re-elect President Obama

Your whole post is based on a lie that was debunked years ago. And YES, as a US Army Combat Vet, I WILL be voting for President Obama.

http://www.snopes.com/politic...

And President Obama has actually DONE much for Veterans not just talked about it like the Conservatives.

• He announced a new VA budget of $112.8 billion, a 15.5-percent increase over the previous year. Among other things, the higher budget calls for hiring more staff, treating 122,000 more patients, and beginning the switch of patient records to an electronic system that can be accessed by all VA facilities. The increase will also pay for an uptick in education claims by veterans who are taking advantage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, passed last year.

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added another $1.4 billion to the VA budget, to be used toward improving services, including grant money to states to build extended care facilities for vets, and the hiring of 1,500 new claims processors to speed up delivery of benefits.

• The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Initiative mandates that the DOD and VA work together to build a coordinated computer system that will provide accessible patient information from the day an individual enters military service throughout the rest of his/her life. This will remedy one of veterans' main complaints about the VA.

• In a related issue, the Obama administration is pushing for a measure that would let Congress approve VA money a year in advance, thus avoiding the delays for budget reasons that have plagued the agency.

• Just two weeks ago, the VA and DOD held a joint Mental Health Summit in Washington, designed to "harness the programs, resources and expertise of both departments to deal with the aftermath of the battlefield." The initiative will include removing the stigma many soldiers feel about admitting to PTSD symptoms, and, finally, treating PTSD and traumatic brain injuries more fully, rather than how it's been dealt with in the past, as something to be merely contained enough to keep it from causing major social (or political) problems.

• With more than 100,000 veterans going homeless on any given night, Obama proposes pilot programs with non-profits to specifically target vets' homelessness and its related problems. A more concrete plan is expected within a few months.

Really ? President Obama has actually DONE much for Veterans not just talked about it like the Conservatives.

• He announced a new VA budget of $112.8 billion, a 15.5-percent increase over the previous year. Among other things, the higher budget calls for hiring more staff, treating 122,000 more patients, and beginning the switch of patient records to an electronic system that can be accessed by all VA facilities. The increase will also pay for an uptick in education claims by veterans who are taking advantage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, passed last year.

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added another $1.4 billion to the VA budget, to be used toward improving services, including grant money to states to build extended care facilities for vets, and the hiring of 1,500 new claims processors to speed up delivery of benefits.

• The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Initiative mandates that the DOD and VA work together to build a coordinated computer system that will provide accessible patient information from the day an individual enters military service throughout the rest of his/her life. This will remedy one of veterans' main complaints about the VA.

• In a related issue, the Obama administration is pushing for a measure that would let Congress approve VA money a year in advance, thus avoiding the delays for budget reasons that have plagued the agency.

• Just two weeks ago, the VA and DOD held a joint Mental Health Summit in Washington, designed to "harness the programs, resources and expertise of both departments to deal with the aftermath of the battlefield." The initiative will include removing the stigma many soldiers feel about admitting to PTSD symptoms, and, finally, treating PTSD and traumatic brain injuries more fully, rather than how it's been dealt with in the past, as something to be merely contained enough to keep it from causing major social (or political) problems.

• With more than 100,000 veterans going homeless on any given night, Obama proposes pilot programs with non-profits to specifically target vets' homelessness and its related problems. A more concrete plan is expected within a few months.

most military is conservative

Military votes Gop

I suppose I’m one of those people who has long subscribed to the idea that the United States military, while not 100% monolithic, was composed primarily of those who tended to lean toward the conservative side of the aisle, if not actually registered Republicans. I suppose that goes back to my own time in the service when it certainly seemed to be a prevalent attitude in the enlisted circles I traveled in. There’s also an understandable perception that those who are willing to put their lives on the line for their country would likely be strong on national security issues, traditionally a GOP strong point. Further, even in modern social media, the more prevalent “mil-blogger” voices you tend to see are conservatives. (Granted, that’s purely anecdotal from my own perception.)
But now, (via OTB) some research from a view years ago compiled by political scientists Jason Dempsey and Bob Shapiro seems to indicate it’s more of an even split similar to the civilian population at large than I would have suspected.
It is true that the upper echelons of the military tilt right. My own research confirmed that about two-thirds of majors and higher-ranking officers identify as conservative, as previous studies found. But that tilt becomes far less pronounced when you expand the pool of respondents. That is because only 32 percent of the Army’s enlisted soldiers consider themselves conservative, while 23 percent identify as liberal and the remaining 45 percent are self-described moderates. These numbers closely mirror the ideological predilections of the civilian population
Dr. James Joyner sums up the contributing factors and how much of a difference the military vote may make in elections.
1. The military, and especially its senior officers, are more Republican and conservative than the country as a whole. But the extent of this is grossly exaggerated, because the media naturally focuses on the attitudes of the officer corps, particularly more senior officers.
2. These differences are almost entirely explainable by the demographic makeup of the military, which is self-selected.
3. As with the rest of the country, the younger cohorts of the military–including its officer corps–are less Republican and less conservative. See, for example, the enormous swings in attitudes on gays in the military over the last 20 years.
4. The notion that the “military vote” plays a major role in choosing our presidents is vastly overstated. In addition to the issues Lawrence notes, a third of the states essentially disenfranchise military personnel by mailing absentee ballots too late. The caveat is that, because a disproportionate number of military personnel claim Florida as their home of record in order to avoid paying state income taxes, they could potentially serve as a decisive swing vote in an incredibly close contest along the lines of the 2000 election. Those are, of course, quite uncommon.
I suppose all of that makes sense. Demographics do tend to shift from one generation to the next, and there’s no reason that the military would be exempt from this. What would be more interesting would be to see if similar studies were ever conducted in the past and compare some snapshots from the forties, the sixties, the eighties and today. But another factor not mentioned here might be that no matter which party controls the White House, you don’t tend to see the members of the military running around criticizing the administration in public. This comes from generations of training which teach them not to run around trash talking the chain of command, including the very top of it.
Unlike the general public, the military generally comes out to vote in higher percentages. About 70 percent of the 1.4 million active duty military members voted in 2000 compared with about 51 percent of the general public, according to federal election records.
But determining the political leanings of the nation’s military has traditionally been difficult. The military is prickly about giving pollsters and academics unfettered access to its troops.
A poll conducted late last year by the Military Times found that 57 percent of those surveyed consider themselves Republican, while 13 percent identified with the Democrats. Among the officer corps the numbers were different. Nearly 66 percent of officers considered themselves Republican compared with 9 percent Democratic. Nearly 30 percent of those surveyed by the Military Times declined to answer the questions or said they were independent.

The best guess is Bush won (the military vote) 60-40 and I'm guessing it will be lower than that for McCain," said Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University who specializes in civil-military relations.
A Gallup survey in early August found 56 percent of veterans supported McCain while only 34 percent planned to vote for Obama.
At the same point in the 2004 presidential race, 55 percent of veterans backed Bush and 39 percent backed Kerry.
May 28, 2012
Veterans Give Romney Big Lead Over Obama
Veterans responsible for Romney's advantage among men overall
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge.

These data, from an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted April 11-May 24, show that 24% of all adult men are veterans, compared with 2% of adult women.
Obama and Romney are tied overall at 46% apiece among all registered voters in this sample. Men give Romney an eight-point edge, while women opt for Obama over Romney by seven points. It turns out that the male skew for Romney is driven almost entirely by veterans. Romney leads by one point among nonveteran men, contrasted with the 28-point edge Romney receives among male veterans.

The small percentage of female veterans in the U.S., in contrast to their male counterparts, do not differ significantly in their presidential vote choice from the vast majority of women who are not veterans.
The proportion of U.S. men who are armed forces veterans rises dramatically among those who are 60 and older. The military draft was in force in the U.S. from shortly before the U.S. entry into World War II until the early 1970s. A majority of men now 70 to 89 served in the military, including almost three-quarters of those aged 80 to 89. Less than a fifth of men younger than 50 have served in the military. There is little variation in military service among women across these age groups.

WRONG. The GOP never does ANYTHING for VETS.

President Obama has actually DONE much for Veterans not just talked about it like the Conservatives.

• He announced a new VA budget of $112.8 billion, a 15.5-percent increase over the previous year. Among other things, the higher budget calls for hiring more staff, treating 122,000 more patients, and beginning the switch of patient records to an electronic system that can be accessed by all VA facilities. The increase will also pay for an uptick in education claims by veterans who are taking advantage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, passed last year.

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added another $1.4 billion to the VA budget, to be used toward improving services, including grant money to states to build extended care facilities for vets, and the hiring of 1,500 new claims processors to speed up delivery of benefits.

• The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Initiative mandates that the DOD and VA work together to build a coordinated computer system that will provide accessible patient information from the day an individual enters military service throughout the rest of his/her life. This will remedy one of veterans' main complaints about the VA.

• In a related issue, the Obama administration is pushing for a measure that would let Congress approve VA money a year in advance, thus avoiding the delays for budget reasons that have plagued the agency.

• Just two weeks ago, the VA and DOD held a joint Mental Health Summit in Washington, designed to "harness the programs, resources and expertise of both departments to deal with the aftermath of the battlefield." The initiative will include removing the stigma many soldiers feel about admitting to PTSD symptoms, and, finally, treating PTSD and traumatic brain injuries more fully, rather than how it's been dealt with in the past, as something to be merely contained enough to keep it from causing major social (or political) problems.

• With more than 100,000 veterans going homeless on any given night, Obama proposes pilot programs with non-profits to specifically target vets' homelessness and its related problems. A more concrete plan is expected within a few months.

years have proven vets and military have alwats voted gop so have seniors and now obam will loose the white vote lol those they call reagan democrates. new poll show hes loosing them bad

Obama's White Support Is Too Low to Win
By David Paul Kuhn - June 22, 2012

President Obama does not currently have enough white support to win re-election even if he retains his minority base from 2008. At the same time, electoral data indicates Mitt Romney has not yet attracted enough of these white voters to capitalize on Obama's weakness.
Pundits often note that Romney cannot win with his current level of Hispanic support. That's likely true. But so is the converse: Obama cannot win with his level of white support unless white swing voters withhold their votes from Romney as well.
Today, fewer whites back Obama than any Democratic candidate since Walter Mondale. Romney does not need to emulate Ronald Reagan to win. Should he match Reagan’s share of the white vote in 1984 -- presuming all else remains constant since 2008 -- Romney would rout Obama.
Of course, America has changed since Reagan. Non-Hispanic whites were 89 percent of the electorate when Reagan first won the White House in 1980. They were 85 percent in 1988. By 2008, whites were 74 percent. That shift has upended the electoral landscape. But only so much.
Take Michael Dukakis’ fate as an example. In 1988, George H.W. Bush’s margin of victory exceeded Obama’s in 2008. But if Obama’s level of white support in 2012 equals Dukakis’, and all else remains the same from 2008, Obama would likely narrowly win. He would lack a mandate and risk immediate lame-duck status. But he would survive with white support that once sundered Democrats.
Unless . . .
What if Obama doesn't even match Dukakis with whites? That’s the dynamic of 2012. This electorate has a white floor. And it has broken for this president. Democrats cannot depend on demographics to save them.
Should Romney win the whites Obama lost, Romney will only need to perform as well as John McCain with minorities to win. This is true even under Democrats’ most optimistic, and unlikely, demographic scenario: that the white share of the electorate decreases another two percentage points from 2008, blacks turn out at the same historic levels they did then, and the Hispanic share of the vote rises from 9 to 11 percent of the electorate while Obama retains the same level of support from other minority groups.
The white margin to watch: 61-39. That’s the rough break-even point. Obama likely needs more than 39 percent of whites to assure re-election. Romney likely needs at least 61 percent of whites to assure Obama’s defeat (or 60.5 in some scenerios). These are estimates based on an electorate that matches the diversity of 2008 or is slightly less white. It presumes the Electoral College outcome does not diverge from the winner of the popular vote (loose talk aside, it’s only happened four times in U.S. history).
Thus, Obama can do a little worse than Dukakis, and Romney must perform a little better than Bush circa 1988. Whites favored Reagan in 1984 by a 64-35 margin. They favored Bush in 1988 by a 59-40 margin. Four years ago, whites favored McCain by a 55-43 margin.
Only 37 or 38 percent of whites back Obama today, according to the Gallup Poll’s authoritative weekly averages since early April (which have a larger sample size than most polls combined). The rub for Romney? In those same matchups, Romney only wins 54 percent of whites. Other surveys show the same. CNN’s latest pegged the white margin at 53-39. FOX News’ latest, 51-35. Ipsos-Reuters, 53-38. The Pew Research Center's polls have, however, shown Obama stronger this year. Its recent survey placed the margin at 54-41.
Writ large, Obama appears below his floor with whites. But so does Romney. Obama has too few whites saying yea to a second term. And Romney has converted too few nays to his side. Notably, the same share of whites say they will vote for Obama as approve of his job performance.
These whites constitute, by far, the largest share of the swing vote. The president depends on Hispanics to partly compensate for his weakness with whites. That’s possible in some states like Florida, Colorado and Nevada. But Latinos are less than a 10th of the electorate in every other swing
state.

Report Says Obama Cannot Win Without White Voters
By Andrew Zarowny
Has Barack Obama already lost his reelection bid for 2012? Was a decision late last year by the Obama campaign to write off ′working white voters′ the root cause? A story by David Paul Kuhn of Real Clear Politics seems to be suggesting that Obama cannot win due to falling support from white voters. That even if he does manage to repeat his successes with non-white voters from 2008, the game is already over. That Obama may not even win the dismally low 35% that Walter Mondale won in 1984. The only salvation, however, is that Mitt Romney has yet to capitalize on this advantage. According to Kuhn′s demographics, the ′over-under′ is 61% for Romney and 39% for Obama. Those are the percentages of the white voters either candidate needs to win.
Barack Obama was supposed to be the transformational president. Half white himself, Obama was billed as the post-racial president who would heal the divisions in America. But the exact opposite has been the case. The nation is more divided, more partisan, than ever before. Perhaps the most amusing example is how, this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi criticized the contempt of Congress vote against Eric Holder held by the House Judiciary Oversight Committee, setting the stage for a vote by the full House this coming week. Pelosi tried to deflect critics of Eric Holder by raising the issue of vote suppression. Yet it has been Eric Holder directing the Department of Justice to ignore any vote suppression cases where whites were the targets. Such as in the case of the New Black Panther Party intimidating white voters in Philadelphia in November, 2008. Justice Department whistle-blowers testified that orders to drop the case came from on high.
The most recent Gallup Poll shows that among white voters, Obama only has 37-38% support now, barely more than the 35% which Walter Mondale won in 1984. Other polls have Obama with even less. Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is still not doing all that great either, averaging about 53-55% support from whites in most polls. Of course, one may factor in the so-called ′Bradley Effect′ in any political poll where race is an issue. So these numbers may already be off by 4 to 5 points favoring Romney.
The demographic trends for future elections will make the white vote less significant. But that will not help Barack Obama overcome the lack of support from white voters now. Obama is also having trouble with his own base of support. He is down 4% among Black voters, down 6% amongst women, down 5 to 9 points among college graduates and post-graduates, and off 9% among the youth vote. Older voters, including the senior citizens, have Obama trailing about 6% from 2008. Not only has Obama apparently written off the ′working white′ vote, but also Catholics and other devout religious voters, too, with his position shifts on birth control and gay marriage. The bottom line in all of this is that the election is Mitt Romney′s to win, even by a landslide, if he can sell his vision for the future to America. If so, then Barack Obama may suffer the most humiliating defeat of any presidential candidate

Military votes Gop

I suppose I’m one of those people who has long subscribed to the idea that the United States military, while not 100% monolithic, was composed primarily of those who tended to lean toward the conservative side of the aisle, if not actually registered Republicans. I suppose that goes back to my own time in the service when it certainly seemed to be a prevalent attitude in the enlisted circles I traveled in. There’s also an understandable perception that those who are willing to put their lives on the line for their country would likely be strong on national security issues, traditionally a GOP strong point. Further, even in modern social media, the more prevalent “mil-blogger” voices you tend to see are conservatives. (Granted, that’s purely anecdotal from my own perception.)
But now, (via OTB) some research from a view years ago compiled by political scientists Jason Dempsey and Bob Shapiro seems to indicate it’s more of an even split similar to the civilian population at large than I would have suspected.
It is true that the upper echelons of the military tilt right. My own research confirmed that about two-thirds of majors and higher-ranking officers identify as conservative, as previous studies found. But that tilt becomes far less pronounced when you expand the pool of respondents. That is because only 32 percent of the Army’s enlisted soldiers consider themselves conservative, while 23 percent identify as liberal and the remaining 45 percent are self-described moderates. These numbers closely mirror the ideological predilections of the civilian population
Dr. James Joyner sums up the contributing factors and how much of a difference the military vote may make in elections.
1. The military, and especially its senior officers, are more Republican and conservative than the country as a whole. But the extent of this is grossly exaggerated, because the media naturally focuses on the attitudes of the officer corps, particularly more senior officers.
2. These differences are almost entirely explainable by the demographic makeup of the military, which is self-selected.
3. As with the rest of the country, the younger cohorts of the military–including its officer corps–are less Republican and less conservative. See, for example, the enormous swings in attitudes on gays in the military over the last 20 years.
4. The notion that the “military vote” plays a major role in choosing our presidents is vastly overstated. In addition to the issues Lawrence notes, a third of the states essentially disenfranchise military personnel by mailing absentee ballots too late. The caveat is that, because a disproportionate number of military personnel claim Florida as their home of record in order to avoid paying state income taxes, they could potentially serve as a decisive swing vote in an incredibly close contest along the lines of the 2000 election. Those are, of course, quite uncommon.
I suppose all of that makes sense. Demographics do tend to shift from one generation to the next, and there’s no reason that the military would be exempt from this. What would be more interesting would be to see if similar studies were ever conducted in the past and compare some snapshots from the forties, the sixties, the eighties and today. But another factor not mentioned here might be that no matter which party controls the White House, you don’t tend to see the members of the military running around criticizing the administration in public. This comes from generations of training which teach them not to run around trash talking the chain of command, including the very top of it.
Unlike the general public, the military generally comes out to vote in higher percentages. About 70 percent of the 1.4 million active duty military members voted in 2000 compared with about 51 percent of the general public, according to federal election records.
But determining the political leanings of the nation’s military has traditionally been difficult. The military is prickly about giving pollsters and academics unfettered access to its troops.
A poll conducted late last year by the Military Times found that 57 percent of those surveyed consider themselves Republican, while 13 percent identified with the Democrats. Among the officer corps the numbers were different. Nearly 66 percent of officers considered themselves Republican compared with 9 percent Democratic. Nearly 30 percent of those surveyed by the Military Times declined to answer the questions or said they were independent.

The best guess is Bush won (the military vote) 60-40 and I'm guessing it will be lower than that for McCain," said Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University who specializes in civil-military relations.
A Gallup survey in early August found 56 percent of veterans supported McCain while only 34 percent planned to vote for Obama.
At the same point in the 2004 presidential race, 55 percent of veterans backed Bush and 39 percent backed Kerry.
May 28, 2012
Veterans Give Romney Big Lead Over Obama
Veterans responsible for Romney's advantage among men overall
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. veterans, about 13% of the adult population and consisting mostly of older men, support Mitt Romney over Barack Obama for president by 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four-percentage-point edge.

These data, from an analysis of Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted April 11-May 24, show that 24% of all adult men are veterans, compared with 2% of adult women.
Obama and Romney are tied overall at 46% apiece among all registered voters in this sample. Men give Romney an eight-point edge, while women opt for Obama over Romney by seven points. It turns out that the male skew for Romney is driven almost entirely by veterans. Romney leads by one point among nonveteran men, contrasted with the 28-point edge Romney receives among male veterans.

The small percentage of female veterans in the U.S., in contrast to their male counterparts, do not differ significantly in their presidential vote choice from the vast majority of women who are not veterans.
The proportion of U.S. men who are armed forces veterans rises dramatically among those who are 60 and older. The military draft was in force in the U.S. from shortly before the U.S. entry into World War II until the early 1970s. A majority of men now 70 to 89 served in the military, including almost three-quarters of those aged 80 to 89. Less than a fifth of men younger than 50 have served in the military. There is little variation in military service among women across these age groups.

WRONG AGAIN. The GOP never does ANYTHING for VETS.

President Obama has actually DONE much for Veterans not just talked about it like the Conservatives.

• He announced a new VA budget of $112.8 billion, a 15.5-percent increase over the previous year. Among other things, the higher budget calls for hiring more staff, treating 122,000 more patients, and beginning the switch of patient records to an electronic system that can be accessed by all VA facilities. The increase will also pay for an uptick in education claims by veterans who are taking advantage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, passed last year.

• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added another $1.4 billion to the VA budget, to be used toward improving services, including grant money to states to build extended care facilities for vets, and the hiring of 1,500 new claims processors to speed up delivery of benefits.

• The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Initiative mandates that the DOD and VA work together to build a coordinated computer system that will provide accessible patient information from the day an individual enters military service throughout the rest of his/her life. This will remedy one of veterans' main complaints about the VA.

• In a related issue, the Obama administration is pushing for a measure that would let Congress approve VA money a year in advance, thus avoiding the delays for budget reasons that have plagued the agency.

• Just two weeks ago, the VA and DOD held a joint Mental Health Summit in Washington, designed to "harness the programs, resources and expertise of both departments to deal with the aftermath of the battlefield." The initiative will include removing the stigma many soldiers feel about admitting to PTSD symptoms, and, finally, treating PTSD and traumatic brain injuries more fully, rather than how it's been dealt with in the past, as something to be merely contained enough to keep it from causing major social (or political) problems.

• With more than 100,000 veterans going homeless on any given night, Obama proposes pilot programs with non-profits to specifically target vets' homelessness and its related problems. A more concrete plan is expected within a few months.