War in Iraq could cost Bush
By Moni Basu
Cox News Service
Monday, March 8, 2004
When President Bush toured Ground Zero in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Donna Bramblett cried openly.
She liked that he mentioned God in his speeches. She was thankful she had voted Republican the year before.
This November will be very different.
"I am angry. I feel betrayed," said Bramblett, 41, a nurse from the small Emanuel County town of Adrian, Ga. "I won't vote for Bush again."
Bramblett plans to cast her ballot for likely Democratic nominee John Kerry, even though she and the Massachusetts senator are on opposite sides of many issues. As the wife of a National Guardsman, Bramblett cannot forgive President Bush for the war in Iraq.
As the first anniversary of the war approaches, disgruntled military families are speaking their minds on the justification of the conflict and the treatment of their husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who are risking their lives.
They say they are fed up with a war that some believe was unnecessary. They are frightened by a steadily mounting death toll. They are angered by tales of inadequate supplies -- a lack of bulletproof vests, clothing or clean drinking water -- for their loved ones and a belief that Bush reneged on campaign promises made four years ago to help overstretched and disaffected armed forces.
Supporters of the president, however, cite a recent Military Times poll of 993 active-duty troops that showed 56 percent backing Bush, even after a year of grueling tours and constant casualties.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said uniformed personnel and their families have traditionally voted Republican because national security is seen as one of the party's greatest strengths. But Chambliss, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged "there was a lot of discontent out there," especially among families waiting for their loved ones to return home.
"It's interesting, the men and women in uniform are so fired up," he said. "But when you talk to their spouses, that's where the problem is."
The National Annenberg Election Survey, an academic election poll, found support for Bush dropping among military families, from 62 percent in October to 59 percent in February.
Those are the people with the greatest potential for crossover voting, said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who studies military voting patterns.
"Military families are usually Republican but not solidly in the Bush camp," Feaver said. "While the morale of the soldier in Baghdad may be high, the morale of his wife in Alabama or Georgia may be the opposite."
The Web site for Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group formed last year, is teeming with complaints about long deployments, budget cuts and "misinformation" from the White House.
"The war in Iraq has taken their loved ones from them," said Nancy Lessin, one of the group's founders. "So that is a very powerful motivator in terms of many things."
Chambliss acknowledged that long deployments are part of the problem.
"If they know their spouse or father or child will come home, they feel better about things," Chambliss said.
The military bloc counts 2.7 million active duty and reserve troops, 25 million veterans and roughly 3 million family members. They could be decisive in states that had close votes in 2000 and are expected to be battlegrounds again.
It's the widest opening the Democrats have had in a long time, said Diane Mazur, an Air Force veteran and law school professor at the University of Florida.
"I think there is a sense among military voters that they have been let down by the party they thought deserved their allegiance," Mazur said. "People are reconsidering that allegiance."
Barbee Smoot, a native of Blackshear, grew up in the shadow of Fort Stewart and met and married her husband there. But when Army Staff Sgt. Lawrence Smoot, now with the Fort Hood, Texas-based 4th Infantry Division, was sent off to Iraq a year ago, Barbee Smoot's political outlook changed.
She will walk into a polling station in November and vote for a Democrat.
"I have voted Republican all my life," Smoot said. "But I'm not voting for Bush again. He put American men and women in harm's way. And for what? Where are the weapons of mass destruction?"
About a fifth of the approximately 130,000 troops in Iraq now are Guard and Reserve forces, and the percentage is likely to rise considerably under a new rotation plan.
Guard families were as unprepared for Iraq as the soldiers themselves, Bramblett said. Since her husband James' unit, the 878th Engineer Battalion, based in Augusta, left in June, she has cared for four children and endured difficult surgery by herself.
"My husband is trained to take care of hurricanes and tornadoes -- not this," she said of the war.
"I consider myself patriotic," continued Bramblett, dressed from head to toe in red, white and blue. "But if I could talk to Mr. Bush, I would tell him about all the wives who cannot pay their bills, who cannot make it alone. And I would take my children with me so he could explain to them why their daddy is over there."
Moni Basu writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: mbasu@ajc.com
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