Armed Forces Contributed More to Ron Paul Than Other Candidates
July 17th, 2007 by MarkAccording to the US Federal Election Commission Selected Presidential Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly, current soldiers and veterans have contributed more money to Ron Paul than to any other presidential candidate, with John McCain coming in second amongst GOP candidates.
Military contributions for GOP candidates
| Army | Navy | USAF | USMC | VET | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ron Paul | 6975 | 7765 | 4650 | 1500 | 1250 | 22140 |
| McCain | 6225 | 6480 | 1570 | 1600 | 800 | 16675 |
| Romney | 2051 | 0 | 1500 | 0 | 1000 | 4551 |
| Giuliani | 1450 | 370 | 250 | 0 | 250 | 2320 |
| Hunter | 0 | 1000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1000 |
| Richardson | 50 | 750 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 800 |
| Huckabee | 250 | 0 | 500 | 0 | 0 | 750 |
| Tancredo | 350 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 350 |
| Brownback | 71 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 71 |
| Thompson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
This table expresses in dollars the total campaign contributions that each candidate has received from individuals who marked “Air Force,” “US Marines,” “USMC,” “Army,” “Navy,” or some other such permutation of letters as their employer that gives the appearance that they are a member of the armed services. The “veteran” column was derived by looking for “retired ______,” “______ retired,” or anything containing the word veteran, with the exception of Veterans’ Affairs (or the like).
Military Favors Ron Paul Over McCain
Percentages:
52.53% Ron Paul
35.4% McCain
7.9% Romney
5.2% Rudy
2.2% Hunter
2.6% Others
This is interesting. On one hand, it’s no surprise that the servicemen tend to support the GOP. On the other hand, the fact that they’re so supportive of the one candidate most steadfastly and most vocally against the Iraq War, and one of only two legislators to vote against our first steps towards war with Iran, is very telling.
Perhaps, our armed forces’ tradition of taking oaths to defend our constitution and the freedom of private US citizens makes Paul’s strong constitutionalist voting record and unwavering support of civil liberties ideologically appealing. Or, it could just be that they’re sick of seeing their friends blown up and thousands upon thousands of Iraqis suffering. Either way, they support Paul’s vision of down-sizing the military over Romney’s vision of a “big stick” military.
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July 17th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
I have to question these results and I don’t think this table in any empirical way reflects the political makeup of the military. I served in the Army at the height of the Reagan era and from my own experience there were many non-GOP types, certainly far more than this table suggests.
There is far too little here to go on in the way of useful data.
July 17th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
PR, that table is only for GOP contributions. Contributions for Democratic candidates were less, but they certainly weren’t insignificant. There’s no need to question the results. You can check them! If you want the data straight from the firehose, follow the top link in the post.
I believe the chart above includes contributions from reservists, but not base workers or departments (such as the V.A.).