Obama in Surge to Enlist Veterans' Votes for '12

[Geee]

Human Events:

Veterans and their families could prove decisive in the 2012 presidential election, which explains President Barack Obama’s push to curry their favor. Republicans, who traditionally receive strong veteran support, had better not take them for granted.

The nation’s 22.7 million military veterans stand out as a critical voting bloc because they account for 20% of the country when their extended families are counted, and they tend to vote at higher rates than most of their cohorts. Perhaps more important is their overrepresentation in battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Arizona and Virginia.

The Obama campaign studied these facts and evidently understands that in the expected tight 2012 race, veterans are up for grabs. That explains the President’s aggressive use of his commander-in-chief status, the nation’s purse and the federal bureaucracy to curry veterans’ favor.

Consider why the Obama campaign believes veterans to be a winnable voting bloc, and what it is doing to clinch their support.

The Obama campaign likely believes the 2008 presidential vote illustrates the unpredictability of veteran voters. Then Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), a former navy pilot and prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, should have trounced the national security neophyte Obama among veterans. But McCain won veterans by just 10 points due to his strong support among the oldest veterans, while Obama won the majority of those under age 60.

ABC News hired Gary Langer of Langer Research Associates to analyze the 2008 veteran vote. What Langer found gives Obama hope for 2012.