Deployed Troops Give to Obama Six Times as Much as McCain

This seems rather significant:

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

Update. Graphed here:
Information for the graph courtesy of Opensecrets.org. Designed by yours truly.

Eliminating Confusion on McCain and Choice

Sarah Blustain has a long piece in The New Republic to come out later this month that eliminates any confusion about John McCain’s position on choice. Ever since his run for the presidency in 2000, when he indicated he might choose a pro-choice running mate, many people have thought that McCain was moderate on choice. Not so:

But, as on abortion, both data and anecdote show there is little latitude in his positions. He has voted to end the Title X family-planning program, which pays for everything from birth control to breast cancer screenings and which is a target for the right because the recipients of these dollars also tend to be clinics that offer contraception to unwed and underage women and that offer abortions. He has backed largely discredited abstinence-only education, voting in 1996 to take $75 million from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant to establish such a program; ten years later, he voted against teen-pregnancyprevention programs. He has supported parental notification laws governing not only abortion but contraception for teens, and, though he didn’t want to talk to the press about it, he’s voted against requiring insurance companies to cover birth control. In international family affairs, McCain has voted not only in favor of the global gag rule, but also to defund the United Nations group that provides family-planning services (not abortions) for poor women, and to spend a third of overseas HIV/AIDS prevention funds on abstinence education.

Blustain reports that McCain has voted with anti-choice groups 125 out of 130 times and has voted in favor of judges that support overturning Roe v. Wade. Wonk Room has a good summary of McCain’s positions on women’s issues.

As Blustain points out in the piece, some Clinton supporters may be tempted to vote for McCain because they misunderstand his position on choice. But as she reports, “One June poll found that, when Democratic women voters in twelve battleground states learned McCain’s position on abortion, Obama gained twelve points among them.” This means that McCain’s stance on choice has huge implications for the upcoming election. For once, choice could truly impact a national race.

Cross posted at pushback.

Obama Is Your Carpool

Jon Stein has a good call on this Lifetime poll. Why does Lifetime assume that women would have different questions about the candidates that have nothing to do with politics? Are women just too concerned with carpooling and vacationing? Ugh. In any case, Obama is still beating McCain among Lifetime's women 49-38.

McCain on Immigration

Dana has a good analysis of McCain on immigration. He's in a unique position because he comes from Arizona, a state where immigration must be treated carefully and moderately. But McCain is now the Republican nominee, and whatever his personal feelings about immigration, he now has a base that tends to strongly resist anything that could be construed as "amnesty." Bush had much of the same problem, where he tried to pass immigration reform and met strong Republican resistance.

McCain on Women's Rights

Steve Bennen has a good post on how electing John McCain would be really bad for women's issues, even going beyond abortion (he also references Scott Lemieux's post on TAPPED this week). I think this is an important distinction to make, especially considering that most people tend to perceive McCain as more moderate on women's rights. But the post includes a pretty good list of votes that shows while McCain may portray himself as moderate on women's rights, his record shows he is anything but.

Carly Fiorina

While endlessly waiting in yet another airport on my way to the National Media Reform Conference, I read the article the NYTimes has on the highest profile woman on the McCain campaign -- no, not Cindy -- Carleton Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive embarrassingly ousted turned RNC chair of McCain's committee. She's a shameless supporter of McCain's gas holiday and some are whispering, according to the article, of an appointment to be secretary of the treasury.

Weird that the article talks about Fiorina as being "the woman" on the campaign rather than the chair of the campaign. I suspect Fiorina's presence will do little to appeal to women who currently tend to vote Democratic. I have little to say of Fiorina herself except maybe this: high-profile female executives seems to breed more female Republicans.

The End of the Religious Conservative

We paid a lot of attention to the evangelical right when they were winning. As John McCain makes his way toward the GOP nomination, never-drop-out Huckabee, who has positioned himself as the emblem of the religious right, wins in Southern states. What the Chirstian right is discovering is that they don't have quite as much power within the party as they thought they did.

Obviously, McCain will be courting conservatives as he moves forward, but what Hucabee's candidacy shows is that evangelical conservatives are a marginal group. They staunchly support someone who they thing represents their values, but that person doesn't even pass the party-wide primary, let alone the national election.

What Bush's candidacy was seems to be a fluke. He was both on the in with the old party leaders (thanks in part to his dad) and on the in with the Christians. In 2000 and 2004 the stars were aligned for the religious conservatives. This year, they're not going to get the candidate they want. So does this mean the power of the religious conservative is over?