If you were a bookie... Polls and bets on the 2004 elections

Uh oh? Noooooo....it's yay!

Doesn't look like the military is all that anti-Bush huh?

If serving in the armed forces is supposed to make one more qualified on matters of National Security, I guess we know who the experts prefer. That poll is one hell of an endorsement if it's accurate...

13/10 average:
Bush 53.9 Kerry 46.6
13/10 last:
Bush 54.0 Kerry 46.2
14/10 average:
Bush 54.3 Kerry 46.1
14/10 last:
Bush 54.9 Kerry 45.0
15/10 average:
Bush 57.9 Kerry 43.0
15/10 current:
Bush 59.2 Kerry 40.7

Charlie Cook was just on Hardball … he said there was movement towards Bush in "private polling" conducted last night. Since I doubt the Bush campaign shares their private polling data with the likes of Charlie Cook, he probably saw Kerry's internal data.

That might explain Kerry's military draft accusations today….

Interesting, nimh ... thanks for that.

Oh, and as long as nimh and I have an interuption goin' on, excuse me, fellas ... I know you're havin' fun and all, but I wanna drop a little polling info in here too, if ya don't mind.

TIPP Oct 14: Bush 47, Kerry 44 The 3-point 47-44 spread has been constant over the past 3 days of TIPPS' new tracking poll. The previous weekly numbers were Sept 28 45/45 Tie, Sept 20 45/42 for Bush, Sept 13 46/46 Tie

Incidentally, Bush has an unsurprising 55 Point Military vote lead, according to a survey released earlier this week (Oct 11) by The Military Times. (Marine Corps edition HERE, subscription required to access some features )

More on this subject here. (This is a survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It's 13 pages long, but here is a portion. My apologies if this has already been posted.)

Quote:

America's military service men and women and their families are convinced that the country is going in the right direction, like George W. Bush much more than the civilian population does, support the war in Iraq more strongly and are more positive about the economy, the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey shows.

A partial explanation for the pro-Bush tilt of the military sample was that they were considerably more Republican than the general population. Forty-three percent called themselves Republican, 19 percent called themselves Democrats and 28 percent said they were independents. While the party identification of respondents in national polls moves around a bit from week to week, this was strikingly more Republican than the general population in the September 27-October 3
sample. There, 28 percent called themselves Republican, 34 percent Democratic and 27 percent
independent.

But this Republican partisanship explained only some but not all of the differences, because on many questions the Republican service members were more pro-Bush than their civilian fellow partisans. Independents in the military sample, when compared to civilians, were also more pro-Bush.

The military sample also held Kerry's anti-Vietnam war activities against him more deeply than did the general public. Seventy-six percent of the military sample said they had seen, heard or
read about those statements and half of that group said they strongly disapproved. In the general
public, 52 percent said they know of those statements, and a third of them strongly disapproved.

The military also gave a positive balance of opinion to Vice President Dick Cheney while the general public was negative. Fifty-four percent of the military sample had a favorable opinion of Cheney, while 28 percent had an unfavorable view. In the general public, 34 percent were favorable and 41 percent unfavorable

.

My thoughts (aside from this report and the one from militarytimes.com), are that those that are actively involved in an effort, such as the war, are more likely to understand and support it than those who are looking on from the outside. The military is bearing the bulk of the burden, but they're also following the war much more closely, seeing the success stories as well as the constant litany of negativity from the media.

JW makes a good point I think. Every single one of the Iraqi War vets I have talked to have expressed resentment and frustration at the way the war is being reported both in the U.S. media and in the European press. What they experience every day just isn't the way it is portrayed in the media and/or by the Democrat pols.

McClenny said in her message that her platoon had refused to go on a fuel-hauling convoy to Taji, north of Baghdad. "We had broken down trucks, non-armored vehicles and, um, we were carrying contaminated fuel. They are holding us against our will. We are now prisoners," she said. [..]

The incident was first reported Friday by The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss. Family members told the newspaper that several platoon members had been confined.

The supply route the soldiers were to have used, is among the most dangerous in Iraq. The military calls it "Main Supply Route Tampa." Many soldiers have been wounded there by roadside bombs and rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire. [..]

Staff Sgt. Christopher Stokes, a 37-year-old chemical engineer from Charlotte, N.C., went to Iraq with the 343rd but had to come home because of an injury. He said reservists were given inferior equipment and tensions in the company had been building since they were deployed in February.

"It wasn't really safe," he said. "The vehicles are not all that up to par anyway. The armor that they have is homemade. It's not really armor. It's like little steel rails."

A whole unit refusing to go on a mission in a war zone would be a significant breach of military discipline.

They do hear the negative over there, so please, please try to support them if you can find it in your hearts. It's not so much to ask, no matter what your political leanings are.