Respect for military service doesn't translate into votes

By Margaret Talev - McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — How important is military service in this presidential election?

Republican nominee John McCain has a vaunted military record. Democrat Barack Obama has none. But four months out from the voting, Obama is ahead in national surveys.

History shows that whether a candidate has military experience rarely determines who'll win election to the nation's highest office. Still, there's enough evidence that Americans respect military service and connect it to patriotism that Obama has been making a concerted effort, especially as Independence Day approached, to talk about his love of country and respect for an institution he never joined.

“We must always express our profound gratitude for the service of our men and women in uniform — period,” Obama said Monday in a speech about patriotism, adding that a silver lining of the war in Iraq “has been the widespread recognition that whether you support this war or oppose it, the sacrifice of our troops is always worthy of honor.”

Speaking on national service, Obama said Wednesday that in addition to services such as teaching and volunteering, “we must value and encourage military service across our society.”

McCain, despite holding a hero's record from Vietnam, has found the value of his own military experience challenged recently by Democrats, notably including retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who said that having your plane shot down, as McCain did, doesn't qualify you to be president.

A year ago, when conventional wisdom said Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, the question was: In wartime, would America elect a woman with no military experience, especially if her rival were a male veteran such as McCain?

With Obama the Democrats' presumptive nominee, it's a different question: Will enough Americans entrust wartime decisions to a man, now 46, who came of age after the draft ended with U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1973 and, like most young people since then, wasn't expected by society to serve?

Consider some findings from the non-partisan Pew Research Center:

■ Americans' low esteem for the federal government doesn't extend to the military. A May survey found support for the federal government the lowest in at least a decade — 37 percent — with President Bush's favorability at only 27 percent. But the survey indicated a favorability rating of 84 percent for the military.

■ Military service topped a list of presidential-candidate traits that would make Americans more likely to support someone in a February 2007 survey. Some 48 percent said they'd be more likely to support a candidate with military service; only 3 percent said they'd be less likely to do so.

■ Respondents to an April survey were asked which traits described various candidates. Ninety percent thought the word patriotic described McCain, while 61 percent thought it fit Obama. Seventy-one percent said tough fit McCain, but only 49 percent applied it to Obama.

Obama did better with inspiring: 66 percent to 39 percent for McCain.

More than twice as many U.S. presidents have had military experience as haven't. For some, it was central to their identities, from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower.