Obama’s Macho Deficit
Mitt Romney has a 14-point Gallup lead among veterans in an otherwise close contest for the presidency, a demographic aberration more understandable to one of them after Monday’s experience in a Memorial Day parade.
I was in one of those custom-made 1970s Pontiac convertibles, outfitted for Elvis and other rock stars with bull’s horns on the front bumper, rifles and handguns pasted everywhere inside and out, encrusted with silver dollars and bullets—-a NRA fever dream of a bygone America that had been fashioned by a Russian immigrant named Nudie Cohn, who started by tailoring outlandish suits and went on to outfit bizarre cars for American idols with no taste and too much money.
In that improbable vehicle, I was separated by a saddle from old friend in uniform, a Democratic activist, but we must have both looked like the dinosaurs who are now furnishing Romney with his lead over Obama.
Sitting there brought back memories of Elvis and Nixon and their strange 1970 White House meeting at which they agreed that the Beatles and drugs had endangered America. Elvis gave Nixon a Colt .45, and he reciprocated with a Bureau of Narcotics badge.
Seven years later, Elvis was dead on a bathroom floor of a drug overdose, and Nixon had resigned in the face of impeachment for White House crimes.
In this election year, ideological strife is back in new forms and the challenge for Barack Obama will be to win back older white men who long for an imagined America.
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Veterans tend to be older white men, a group Obama has trouble with anyway. Are his numbers among veterans any worst than non-veterans of the same demographic?
Obama is leading 5-1 amoung active military contributions. I think we have a generational gap, not a macho gap.
Don’t have exact numbers, but Obamama lost this group to McCain in 2008. How did that turn out?
“Obama is leading 5-1 amoung active military contributions. I think we have a generational gap, not a macho gap.”
Amen!
The amount of money is very small considering the huge number of people who could contribute. Of course it is 5 to 1, but “employees of the Defense Department or one of four military branches”
could mean 1,000 civilians to 1 military as well.
The government employees, if voting in the interest of keeping their job, would normally vote Republican, so that may be significant.
Here are the demographics of the 2008 election:
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_08.html
The Old White Men difference in voting was less than race, income, party affiliation, or age (except for ages 18-29) differences.
There is not a bona fide war hero to vote for this time.
“Commander-in-Chief who has kept the country safe from foreign threats”
Not blaming any of that on the previous administration this time, eh.
I guess macho-man Obama with his OBL notch on his belt couldn’t sway the older military. Wonder why?
Replace “macho” in the title with “Old white guy” and it makes more sense.
According to gallup: http://www.gallup.com/poll/154904/Veterans-Give-Romney-Big-Lead-Obama.aspx
“Age makes little substantive difference in the vote preferences of male veterans.”
Granted, they categorize everyone under 50 in the same group, so it’s tough to say. There’s this from last year though: http://www.gallup.com/poll/147839/Military-Personnel-Veterans-Give-Obama-Lower-Marks.aspx
Which indicates Obama gets lower marks from active military of all ages, partly due to abstaining from the question but also partly due to increased disapproval. So, to say there is no military gap (I’ll take the loaded word “macho” out of it) isn’t supported, at least from the data I’ve seen. And I hope we can all agree that donation ratios don’t tell us much, especially when there is polling data that contradicts it. It tells us who defense employees who have money and the inclination to spend it on politics support, but I’d reason that’s a pretty small, self-selected sample.
As a side note: I think it’s admirable that more military people refuse to answer the question or say they don’t know. It shows great restraint and/or humility and reservation of judgment, all of which are admirable qualities.
“Granted, they categorize everyone under 50 in the same group, so it’s tough to say.”
On the other hand, it’s tough to argue that someone under 50 falls into the category of “old white guy”, at least I hope not.