A recent Gallup survey finds that U.S. veterans overwhelmingly support Romney for president by a whopping 58% to 34%, while nonveterans give Obama a four point edge, 48% to 44%. It’s interesting to note that U.S. veterans make up about 13% of the U.S. population and are usually older males.
It’s ironic that veterans would go for Mitt Romney in such overwhelming numbers, when we have seen him repeatedly avoid discussing social issues, many of which returning veterans grapple with on a daily basis — high unemployment, substandard medical care, financial woes, etc. You see, Mitt Romney is running his campaign according to the wishes of a narrow sliver of the Republican Party — the right wing evangelicals. He seems not to have few thoughts on illegal immigration (self-deportation came up during a presidential candidate debate), activist judges or even global warning. He simply pins his hopes solely on the economy, just where the ultra-right wing wants it. But that’s about to blow up in his face. You see, President Obama would rather not focus on the weak economy but on social issues.
It also doesn’t bode well for Mitt Romney that anyone with a gripe can form a super-PAC, and take him off his message, should they highlight an issue that’s uncomfortable for him, as we saw with the resurrection of Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright. It took Mitt Romney off his message and he had to waste a big chunk of time addressing the racially-motivated dig against Obama. You will recall the Romney campaign, rather than stand up to the right wing evangelicals, immediately fired an openly gay foreign affairs staffer. Well, Mitt Romney had better be prepared to be dragged into one social issue fracas after another. The Obama campaign team will make sure of that and I suspect, some super-PACs will too. The sad reality is the right wing evangelicals won’t allow Mitt Romney to run the type of campaign he probably would have run.
Here are some tweets from Romney right wing evangelical supporter Bryan Fischer:
It’s time to rehabilitate the word “discrimination.” We discriminate for good reasons all the time. ow.ly/bat2J
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) May 26, 2012
Bibi Netanyau attends Bible study: “The Bible is the foundation of our existence.” Need guy like that here. ow.ly/bbn9B
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) May 27, 2012
About Janet Shan
