Gary's Blog

By Brendan McGarry

Career-oriented service mem­bers are still far more conservative than liberal, but are increasingly identifying themselves as politi­cally independent, according to the latest Military Times survey.

The percentage of survey respondents who identify them­selves as Democrats has stayed relatively unchanged since 2004, around 12 percent.

...

But self-identified Republicans have dropped from 60 percent in 2004 to 41 percent today, while independents have nearly doubled to 32 percent during the same period, the survey shows.

Much of that change has taken place only very recently; the per­centage of self-identified Republi­cans dropped nine percentage points from 2008 to 2009, accord­ing to the Military Times survey. That virtually mirrored the 10-point increase in self-identi­fied independents over that same period.

Party affiliation also is down in the civilian population, where today independents account for 38 percent of the electorate — more than either major political party, according to a March 23-26 Wash­ington Post poll.

Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sgt. Steve Soha, 47, assigned to the District Injured Support Cell with the Corps’ Wounded Warrior Regiment in Arizona, is among the Republicans-turned-independents. Soha said he still identifies with issues championed by Republi­cans, including the right to bear arms and family-oriented social policies. But when he looks around the Republican party today, he said he doesn’t see any rising stars.

“I don’t con­sider myself just a one­-party guy,” he said. “I look to see what [can­didates] bring to the table.” Soha said he is not surprised by the shift in party identification. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he said, have spawned a new generation of politically attuned Marines.

“The younger Marines are a lot sharper, a lot more involved, a lot more educated than we were com­ing in,” he said. “They’re not buy­ing into the company line.” Army Capt. Jason Hite, 38, com­mander of the 129th Ordnance Company at Fort Lewis, Wash., said he considers himself fiscally and morally conservative, but enjoys the freedom of the indepen­dent label.

“Saying you’re independent gives you that flexibility to go after the issues rather than the party,” he said. “Your top issue may be on the agenda of the party you wouldn’t normally vote for.

“Independents are not all for the same principles,” he said.

In the Military Times survey, 47 percent of active-duty mem­bers identified themselves as con­servative, 39 percent as moderate and 8 percent as liberal. Those figures have changed slightly since 2005, when 50 percent said they were conservative, 33 per­cent were moderate and 7 per­cent were liberal. The rest declined to answer.

Army Maj. Emmitt Osborne, a logistician at Fort Knox, Ky., said hyper-partisanship in today’s politics is probably influ­encing the trends in military party identification.

“The more polarized the parties become, you’re going to see less connection to an affiliation,” he said. “The mission of the Army is to support and defend the Consti­tution and the American people. We’re very centrist in theory.”

David Segal, a military sociolo­gist at the University at Mary­land, said the results suggest even traditionally conservative troops perceive the GOP as shifting too far right of center.

“It’s hard to say what the long­term effect is going to be,” Segal said. “They’re basically positioning themselves to be a swing vote to evaluate which of the parties is doing things that they feel com­fortable with, probably to a large extent national security.”

Segal said fewer leaders today likely subscribe to the philosophy of political neutrality espoused by Gen. George Marshall, who served as Army chief of staff dur­ing World War II and later served as secretary of defense and secre­tary of state. For Marshall and many successors, that philosophy meant avoiding the ballot box altogether.

“A military that is politically interested and votes but considers itself independent, I think, is a good thing,” Segal said. “We wouldn’t want them voting on a knee-jerk basis of party labels.”

Army Times
April 19, 2010
Pg. 12

Military Times Poll