Majority of Presidential Candidates Ignore Military

An article published Saturday in Stars & Stripes offered members of the overseas military community a glimpse into the minds of five presidential candidates on issues related to national defense and military spending.  Unfortunately, seven other candidates remain a mystery to readers of overseas daily.  Why?  Because, apparently, those candidates chose to pass on the opportunity to involve more than 450,000 patriots serving their country abroad in the political process.

In case you're not aware, Stars & Stripes is published for members of the U.S. military and DoD civilians, contractors and their families in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East.  It reaches people in more than 163 countries and in every time zone and climate.  For the most part, it functions independent of the military brass in terms of editorial content as it attempts to serve as a First Amendment newspaper.

Stars & Stripes sent surveys having to do with military spending and defense-related issues to 12 candidates, but only five -- Democrats Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson as well as Republicans John McCain and Fred Thompson -- responded in a timely manner.

Conversely, seven candidates failed to respond to the Stars & Stripes survey.  They are:  Democrats Hillary Clinton, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich; and Republicans Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.

Regardless of the content of their answers, those White House hopefuls who placed a priority on responding to the survey also placed at least tacit priority on the need to communicate with members of the military community.  Those who chose not to respond, in effect, told members of the military community the opposite -- that they are not yet worthy of attention.   For that, those candidates should be ashamed.

-- Bob McCarty Writes™