Troops Deployed Abroad Give 6 to 1 to Obama over McCain

This was already posted recently. It in no way suggests that more troops support Obama.

 

Its those rich, elitist Democrat soldiers. They have more money.

 

From the source article:

"A former West Point professor, Jason Dempsey, noted that the small set of contributions from deployed troops at this point in 2008 -- just 323 donations -- should not be extrapolated to form conclusions about military personnel overall"

323 donations seems like a very small sample to be used for drawing the author's conclusions.

The author failed to show a historical link between contributions made and candidate voted for in past elections.

From a statistical analysis point of view - the study is of little value.

 

"While troops deployed abroad might be giving more money to Barack Obama, a poll released today says that John McCain will get the vast majority of votes from members of the military and veterans.

According to Gallup, McCain leads Obama 56 percent to 34 percent, with 11 percent expressing no opinion or picking someone else."

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/military_favors.html

Contributions are great - but votes matter more when you are running for President.

 

It occurs to me to comment that the Republican soldiers are going to be supporting McCain with their votes; whereas the Democratic soldiers appear to think that money will somehow solve the problem....

 

I wonder how in the world troops can afford to give to a political candidate since we starve them to death.

 

So should we stop talking about all polls?

I would think the, "they didn't poll me" defense would have been more input than this.

 

I don't think these polls include the deployed troops which is what the OP said. I don't think the polling company called a soldier out on patrol and asked a couple of questions about their vote.

 

True, but it appears there are 323 deployed soldiers talking politics. And 6 to 1 are talking Obama. Hopefully they are talking sense into the rest of them.

"want to go home, vote Obama".

 

SaltCityBaptist, BaptistBeliever - go back and look at those charts again.

There was a total of 859 military members that contributed to Obama.

Compared to:
538,000 Army
352,000 Army Guard
205,000 Army Reserve
332,000 Navy
66,000 Navy Reserve
194,000 Marines
39,000 Marine Reserves
330,000 Air Force
106,000 Air Guard
67,000 Air Reserve
42,000 Coast Guard
10,000 Coast Guard Reserve

That's 1,436,000 Active Duty, and 848,000 Guard & Reserve. All 3 are working in Iraq. Since the article doesn't specify active, guard, or reserve for the individuals they interviewed, then we have to work from a generic statistic:

859 / 2,284,000 = about .004%

So, in other words, this article is trying to make a case that because .004% of the military members have contributed to Obama, the military is 6 to 1 going to vote for Obama.

Please tell me you understand the sheer silliness of such a conclusion.

 

You forgot the, "and rising".

Now I think you see the point... :smilewinkgrin:

 

What assumption? Be careful there is a hook attached to this one.

 

A key phrase in this report is: "... at the time of their contributions ..." which, if the clock is rolled back to when the data was taken, would mean something very different that what's represented. Data can be sliced and diced all kinds of ways. But, if it does represent the pending actual military vote, then we can be sure the Democrats will want all those absentee ballots counted this time!

 

For sure...

"Psst, Bud, Want to go home?"

 

The news report dates back to 8/15/2008. When was the data collected? Who were the recognized Democrat and Republican party leading candidates when these contributions were made? How was the information gathered? Were they selectively asked or is it a total analysis of all contributions made up to the same cut off point? What's the root source of the raw data?