Disraeli said, "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics."
He couldn't have been more right than in this case.
First, those numbers you cited say absolutely nothing about the age of the contributors, or their role as overseas, active-duty members of the U.S. Military, so your younger/older Vietnam/Iraq analogy doesn't hold water at all. Second, it has been my experience in dealing with these soldiers who are in combat overseas, or who have been, that not too many privates, PFCs, Lance Corporals and Corporals throw a thousand buck contribution at ANY candidate, so my guess (and, yes, it's just a guess) is that most of these contributions came from the officer ranks.
In any event, here is the report from the Center for Responsive Politics (which hysterically enough is still called a "non-partisan group, but we'll leave that for another discussion) from which your statistic came:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, criticized by his Republican rival because of his support for a timetable to withdraw combat forces from Iraq, leads among all candidates in donations from U.S. servicemembers overseas, according to a new report based on government data.
The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, drawing on Federal Election Commission filings, said Democrat Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has McCain.
Republican Ron Paul, who has suspended his campaign, received more than four times McCain's donations, CRP said.
The data stand in contrast to the 2000 and 2004 election cycles, when Republican George W. Bush raised more money from the military than his Democratic rivals, Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry, CRP said.
Here are the amounts and numbers of contributions ranked from troops deployed abroad, based on contributions made during the 2008 election cycle through June 31, 2008.
1 Obama $60,642 (134)
2 Paul $45,512 (99)
3 McCain $10,665 (26)
4 Huckabee $7,950 (10)
5 Thompson $6,350 (7)
6 Romney $5,550 (10)
7 Clinton $3,240 (6)
Here are the amounts and numbers of contributions ranked from all military personnel.
Obama $335,536 (859)
McCain $280,513 (558)
Paul $232,411 (537)
Clinton $167,050 (376)
Republican National Committee $135,902 (219)
Huckabee $66,751 (127)
Thompson $46,400 (93)
Romney $43,307 (96)
Giuliani $22,050 (47)
National Republican Senatorial Committee $21,885 (26)
DNC Services Corp $16,873 (53)
Now, Andrew, the United States has a standing military of about 1.2 million men and women, including gays and lesbians who could go either way, but thanks to the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy we can just use the genetic designation, and about a third, or 400,000 of those forces are deployed overseas at any given time at present.
You statistic is based on 292 of those members and, unlike the Rasmussen poll I cited, those 292 people actually chose to be involved and aren't random selections. In case you aren't close to a calculator, 292 is .00073 percent of the approximately 400,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen who are deployed at any given time.
And those 292 soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen contributed a total of $139,909 out of well over a billion dollars the candidates have raked in since the 2008 Presidential campaign began (seems like a decade ago, but it wasn't.)
Note also that Ron Paul, who claims to be a Republican but isn't really, raked in $45,512, versus $60,642 for Obama, and PAUL doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hades of becoming President.
Let's go to the next set of numbers in that same poll: 2,991 members of our active-duty military have contributed $1,368,678 to Presidential candidates in this cycle (as of June 30, I think.)
Obama leads with $335,536, while McCain has $280,513. That's hardly a 6-to-1 margin. Furthermore, if you really want to consider Ron Paul to be a Republican (and since he ran as a Republican, why not), Democrats and Democrat-leaning causes got $519,459 of that total (37.953 percent), while Republicans and Republican-leaning causes drew 62.047 percent. Even if you pull Ron Paul's total over to the Democrat side because of his anti-war stance, Democrats can only claim 54.93 percent of total contributions.
Forgetting for a moment that there restrictions in place against active-duty mililtary personnel getting directly involved SPECIFICALLY AS SERVICE MEMBERS (that darned Commander in Chief in the chain of command thing, you know, regardless of which party controls the White House), the Rasmussen poll numbers I cited from from a supposedly from a respected organization that carries out its studies scientifically. There is some meaning to a Rasmussen poll that shows McCain with a solid lead over Obama among active-duty military personnel.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO SIGNIFICANCE to your "Obama leads McCain 6-to-1" in contributions from military personnel deployed overseas. And if there is any significance, it's simply because 292 IDIOTS are wearing the uniform of the United States Armed Forces and deployed overseas who did not realize they weren't supposed giving to either a Republican, a Democrat or a Libertarian AS ACTIVE-DUTY, DEPLOYED military, really isn't the smartest thing they'll do.
(They can give whatever they want to as citizens, however, even if they're active-duty military deployed overseas, so don't go screaming about their rights or lack thereof.)
And, if there really were any significance to your precious little list, Ron Paul would be the Republican nominee for President right now and Hillary Clinton quite possibly wouldn't even be SPEAKING at the DNC convention in a couple of weeks, let along having her name put in nomination for President.
Bottom line, Andrew: You thread means absolutely nothing other than as a tool for bogus political spin that somehow, in your minds, indicates that any member of our active-duty armed forces would bother to pee on Obama's let if his pants were on five.
