Not that the Pulitzers mean anything, but notice all the buzz around Stars & Stripes lately? Well, there’s another reference in this article on military voters squirming loose of the GOP claw. I pondered this possibility early last week (you heard it here first!), and now it seems even more plausible. Here’s one thing I learned:
The Department of Defense, which since 1955 has had an office designed to promote voting among the military and track participation rates, does not keep statistics on how many soldiers vote Democrat or Republican, though it does know that they vote at slightly higher rates than average Americans. And ever since shortly after World War II, when academics first became numerous and frisky enough to want to poll soldiers, there have been laws making it illegal to do so.
Which could make the military vote the unheard shot that fells this administration:
A reassignment of less than two-hundredths of 1 percent in the military vote to the Democrats from the Republicans in Florida in 2000 would have moved that state to the Democratic column, and a similar shift of less than 5 percent in the veteran vote alone would have given Arkansas, Nevada, and New Hampshire’s electoral votes to Gore, not Bush. And Pennsylvania and Ohio, expected to be crucial swing states in the next presidential election, each have more than a million veteran voters.
(Props on link to Hit & Run.)