I have long been tired of the Paulbot meme that he receives most of the support among military affiliated donators. Looking at the despicable display of an Army Reserve Soldier at the Ron Paul rally in Iowa was the last straw for me. It was disgraceful to the uniform and embarrassing to me a service member.
First off Iowa and New Hampshire lack a large military presence. South Carolina and Florida do not (hint hint, I will follow up on this after Florida). Here’s the South Carolina active military population:
Ft. Jackson (Columbia, Richland County): 4,000 active military (Note: Ft. Jackson is largely a training base with transients who do not have SC voting privileges).
Joint Base Charleston (Charleston, Charleston County): 7,000 USAF Active and Reserve personnel; 11,500 US Navy and contract personnel supporting former Naval Weapons Station Charleston.
Marine Corps Bases- (Beaufort, Beaufort County): 4,000 USMC at MCAS Beaufort & 2,500 Marines and Sailors at Marine Corps Recruiting Depot-Beaufort.
This is a rough total of 29,000 active military personnel in South Carolina from all branches of the service (minus Coast Guard). As of this time is a safe bet to say Congressman Paul lost the primary with approximately 13% of the vote. Respectable under most circumstances and he certainly has his support. What I want to point out is Ron Paul’s percentages in the above counties is an average of 13.1%. Adding in Aiken County (neighbors Ft. Gordon in Augusta, GA) it lowers to 12.3%. Fact is Congressman Paul never got above 20% in any county other than Abbeville County and then he only lead Romney by 130 votes.
Let me state this clearly: there is no definitive proof that Ron Paul’s alleged military support translates to actual donations or votes among active military personnel or even affiliated personnel. How do I justify that statement versus the balance sheets released by the Paul campaign? Easy, I’ve been active military since Paul has been running for the Presidency and have yet to come across a single supporter. Only recently did I find one former Soldier who was a Paul supporter and he was on Twitter. I won’t lie, I see the appeal that his message has with families and some service members: the message of appeasement appeals to those who love us and to those of us who want to ride behind the oceans. Frankly I’d call them the ill-informed and ignorant of world affairs.
Another likely scenario is Ron Paul’s supporters are jamming the donation boxes with false statements about who their employers are. If you’ve donated to any campaign you know that you can put down anything in the “occupation” box. I’m sure Ron Paul also leads in donations among people who work for Starfleet Command.
So there is is.
Moe Lane
PG DeFreese
Victoria Coates
Daniel Horowitz
Dan Spencer
I think that's a bit harsh
aesthete (Diary) Sunday, January 22nd at 1:07AM EST (link)I’d assume that most people in the military who support a given candidate aren’t doing so out of personal cowardice.
Personally, I don’t know any active or retired service members who support Ron Paul. (I know a few DoD civies who do, though.) That said, I was both a military brat and (very briefly) enlisted in the USAF; in both contexts I got to hear a lot of very informed pessimism about our nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and general discouragement with how both wars were being prosecuted.
With all that said, the final word on military action is civilian command. Virtually all of the troops understand that, and understand that they are putting their rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness on hold while they serve. We should not blindly follow whatever a majority of military personnel desire, anymore than we should let a politician use X% of military support as a justification for anything he or she proposes in foreign policy. All foreign policy proposals and candidates should be justified on their merits. Bringing troop support into the argument is generally a way to deflect criticism, rather than an open discussion of the proposal at hand. That is very much the case with Ron Paul supporters’ talking point vis a vis military donations, and it should be dismissed on those grounds.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
i guess i am an honorary paulbot today. LOL
mikeymike143 (Diary) Sunday, January 22nd at 9:24PM EST (link)i went to click on this diary to recommend it and it gave me 3 votes. just like paulbots do when they vote 20 times for that loon on all the presidential internet polls. LOL
I am the Media Director for Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s Longest Running Tea Party.
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Please click on our TPFL facebook page and ”like” us. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tea-Party-Fort-Lauderdale/187610141278242
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and here is a great article that dismantles ron paul's false claim about having military support
mikeymike143 (Diary) Sunday, January 22nd at 10:22PM EST (link)According to exit polls conducted by Fox News and CNN, Paul got very little actual support from South Carolina’s military population.
Fox News exit polling showed that 21 percent of those who voted in South Carolina served in the military.
Of those who identified themselves as veterans or active duty military, Ron Paul received only 12 percent of the vote. Newt Gingrich, the clear winner of the primary, received 39 percent of the military vote, followed by Romney at 32 percent. Even Rick Santorum received more votes from the military than Paul.
Is it possible that Paul’s military support is more myth than reality?
Redstate diarist Kudzu notes that one “can put down anything in the ‘occupation’ box” when making a donation to a political candidate.
A post at Liberty Reborn calls it “the Big Lie.”
“Military personnel email me every day telling me that on base there is at best one Ron Paul supporter and how frustrated they are that the Paulbots are telling this Big Lie,” writes J. J. Jackson.
to read entire article go here. http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/ron-paul-s-military-support-awol-south-carolina-exit-polls-say
I am the Media Director for Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, America’s Longest Running Tea Party.
http://www.teapartyfortlauderdale.com/
Please click on our TPFL facebook page and ”like” us. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Tea-Party-Fort-Lauderdale/187610141278242
I also own the largest anti Ron Paul page for conservatives on Facebook.
Someone Should Debunk These Articles Claiming Otherwise
benjaminz Tuesday, January 24th at 1:15PM EST (link)This first is from a Jan 6th by the Associated Press:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ji8OB1v20Sc4lOm2zYZQs0nhW22g?docId=12f0fdfcf14741fdb1e0b70a7a605bfa
Title: Paul campaign pulls in cash from military donors
A quote from the article:
“Paul received at least $95,567 from military donors between January and September of last year, the most recent data available, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That’s nearly seven times what Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, who edged out Paul in Iowa, collected from military donors combined.”
Second if from the NYTimes (I know, I know):
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/soldiers-choice/
Title: Soldiers’ Choice
If is from December but it has similar facts.
The right needs its own fact checking organizations. It often feels like the left has a tight grip on what is considered “the truth.”
BS
harleysrgn Thursday, February 16th at 12:57PM EST (link)I’m going to make this very simple as this is an issue I have researched and have kept up with because I am a vet. There are 1.44 milllion active duty troops in the Armed Forces, 848,000 reservists and national guard, and over 1.3 million retired military that Paul and his supporters say they have “the overwhelming support of”. FEC data for Q4 is not available but the best available data culled from various sources reveals that Paul has received about 140,000 to date from about 1400 persons of this constituency of 3.6 million people. 1400/3.6 million equals .038% and if you divide the total amount received of 140,000/3.6 million equals 3.8 cents per person. Hardly a show of “overwhelming support”. Paul and his supporters tried to use this same ridiculous claim in 2008 and the numbers were roughly the same; however, when you look at an actual poll of military personnel that was conducted in 2008 by the Military Times, McCain enjoyed “overwhelming support of the military” (not my words, directly from the article) at 67% to 23% for Obama and Paul wasn’t even mentioned in the article!