Troops trending toward McCain

Posted By John McHale

If you haven't seen it yet, the Army Times released a poll that showed military personnel support Sen. John McCain over Sen. Barack Obama 68 percent to 23 percent in next week's presidential election.

The Army Times notes that this was a poll of career officers and does not represent the military as a whole. The selected group was much older. Brendan McGary, Army Times staff writer reported on the poll.

According to McGary's story it was a "voluntary survey of 4,293 active-duty, National Guard, and reserve subscribers and former subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, and Air Force Times."

Does that mean that this sampling is made up of independent/swing voters or life-long conservatives who always vote republican regardless of the candidate?

In other words if Obama had identical views to McCain on the national defense and Iraq, but still differed on the economy, would they results still be the same?

According to McGary's story Iraq was the third most important issue, with character being number one. In 2004 the same Army Times poll had Iraq as the number one issue, McGary reports.

That year the same poll had Bush with similar numbers to McCain this year. He had 68 percent and John Kerry had 19 percent, according to the article.

The poll is just a small sampling to be sure, but a much different picture to the country as a whole.