John McCain's odds of winning the presidential election seem pretty dismal to be, but one does have to consider the possibility that enough active campaigning against Obama from active duty Army officers could be a big boost to McCain's cause.
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A New Hope
11 Jul 2008 04:21 pm
Comments (26)
"John McCain's odds of winning the presidential election seem pretty dismal to (m)e"
The current Intrade 1 in 3 is pretty damn spot on.
The current Intrade 1 in 3 is pretty damn spot on.
I wouldn't buy higher than 1:5.
Martha Raddatz is neo-connish to me, and ABC News seems to be heading into Fred Hiatt territory, so I take it with a grain of salt.
"I wouldn't buy higher than 1:5."
It's frustrating to me because current trading is so close to Fair Value.
I'd buy McCain at 23. I'd sell McCain at 42. But at 32, there is no play.
They fired Adm. Fallon for talking out of turn. I bet Hammond gets a promotion before 1/20/09.
A simple announcement that the resignations of U.S. military officers who cannot in good faith execute the withdrawal from Iraq will be requested and required on January 20, 2009 should nip this in the bud. Pensions are a terrible thing to waste.
I don't know. I think Obama will win, but McCain will probably go higher than 32 at some point. These races almost always tighten up for some reason, for a little while. But if you buy at 32 and sell at 40, it's not that great a play, unless you're spending a whole lot of cash.
Thankfully, we have civilian control of the military, and the policy decisions are determined by elections--here at home. Maj. Gen. Hammond (and Gen. Petraeus) will be expected to do their damnedest to fulfill the mission if a President Obama were to change it.
On the question of the logistics of getting out, I think the thoughts of the late, missed, Gen. Odom are right on here:
"Simon also argues that logistical imperatives require at least two years for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. That is probably true if all U.S. weapons and materiel are to be removed, but much of it is not worth the costs of hauling it back to the United States. Vast numbers of trucks and other equipment withdrawn from Kuwait in 1991 have never been used again and have been left in costly storage to rust. At least a thousand five-ton trucks can be found stored in Italy today, unused yet costing money to retain. If the highest priority is given to the withdrawal of personnel, not materiel, the required time can be dramatically shortened.
Other factors favor speed. Retrograde movements in war are risky affairs. They must be made when one has lost the initiative or when one's own forces are poorly deployed, which means the opponent has the advantage. More time favors the opponent even more. More speed reduces his opportunities. Speed would also improve diplomacy abroad and boost public morale at home. In the very best circumstances, uncertainties abound during strategic withdrawals."
"I don't know. I think Obama will win, but McCain will probably go higher than 32 at some point. These races almost always tighten up for some reason, for a little while."
Polling is already tight.
After long stasis, Rasmussen broke McCain's way today.
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Three equally possible outcomes:
1) Obama up big on September 21 and wins.
2) Race tight on on September 21 and Obama closes the sale.
3) Race tight on on September 21 and Obama doesn't close the sale.
Buy McCain now with an eye towards selling after Labor Day, and you risk scenario 1 wiping you out, without a big reward in scenarios 2 and 3.
I wish there were bigger volume in the markets for House and Senate seats. That's where the easy money could be made, but there aren't enough punters there yet.
So the military has become a Bush pawn too?
Actually, there is a huge Christian right movement within the military, which means they'll back any Republican. There are cases pending about discrimination against soldiers who wouldn't pray or be involved in various Christian activities, and the guy pulling these together says that he's received literally thousands of letters confirming it.
Andrew Sullivan uses the term "Christianists", and the military seems to be filled with them.
"I don't know. I think Obama will win, but McCain will probably go higher than 32 at some point."
I dunno about that. Obama has tread water pretty successfully for a month. If he does it for another month, we're into the Olympics where people aren't going to be paying a lot of attention. Then the conventions, where he's sure to get a bigger bounce.
And if he makes it to the second week of September at or better than where he is now, there's a very good chance that the race won't narrow after that. McCain would need a pleasant unexpected surprise (possible, but not certain to happen) or a win in the debates (very unlikely).
We need a thorough re-structuring of the entire officer corp. They resemble a 3rd world junta army more than the professional officer corp of a democratic nation at this point. Any decent Defense secretary would send that major general packing immediately. Their job is to implement the CINC's strategy and privately advise him.
Look if you're dumb enough to listen to a man whose spent his entire adult life inside the military system, outside of their council on military matters thats your own fault. They fight and win wars, thats their job, they don't do so hot on the rest of the US citizen chart. At that level they won't contend with healthcare, retirement monetary compensation, housing, or various other issues that are day-to-day problems. They do however have to deal with very cruel and sadistic individuals bent on killing others. So maybe thats the trade I don't know. Now look at what the Maj. Gen. actually said.
It is not bad, he is publicly calling for "conditions based withdrawal, and that any alternative is extremely dangerous." Its not "vote for McCain he's morally superior to Osama, I mean Obama." I wouldn't call it vote posturing, the US military has a lot of issues, but it has a lot of liberals too. We're just underrepresented.
have to consider the possibility that enough active campaigning against Obama from active duty Army officers could be a big boost to McCain's cause.
This is pretty close to frackin libel. Did you read the article?
Some military member(s) have some issues in the abstract about a notional proposal - but said, "I'd have to see the entire plan." to accurately say what are the pro and cons of it. And it was emphatically stated "The soldiers and commanders we spoke to will not engage in political conversation or talk about any particular candidate,"
This is not terrible different than when Austan Goolsbee (or yourself, iirc) expressed some reservations on Obama's NAFTA proposals. It does not show a potential disloyalty to a president Obama nor even preclude the possibility that they favor him overall anyway. (yes in aggregate military officer's don't, but Obama will get more votes from military officers (%) this year than any time in the last 3 decades)
A simple announcement that the resignations of U.S. military officers who cannot in good faith execute the withdrawal from Iraq will be requested and required on January 20, 2009 should nip this in the bud. Pensions are a terrible thing to waste.
This won't necessary. After a period of consultation to consider options, the President will make his wishes known. When those wishes are passed down the chain of command, private pissing and moaning is expected and tolerated, but failing to act in accordance with the policy is not.
Every officer is intimately aware of the fact that they are commissioned by and serve at the pleasure of the President. Failure to obey orders is at best at quick ticket to early retirement. The cadre has sufficient numbers at every level that if need be, a large number can find themselves confined to quarters until the rest get the message and get with it.
I seriously doubt it will ever come to that. There is enough strain on the forces in country that an order to pack it in won't be resisted.
Once the Iran war starts and serious numbers of body bags start coming back from the cross-border operations later, we'll see how many military personnel who are actually on the front lines want McCain to be President.
Not too many on the front lines in Iraq like Bush these days.
enough active campaigning against Obama from active duty Army officers could be a big boost to McCain's cause.
They're just telling us the truth about Iraq. Of course, the truth has a known Republican bias.
We have civilian leadership of the military for a compelling reason, and the Raddatz piece only strengthens that case.
A simple announcement that the resignations of U.S. military officers who cannot in good faith execute the withdrawal from Iraq will be requested and required on January 20, 2009 should nip this in the bud. Pensions are a terrible thing to waste.
Posted by JMG
A simple poison letter by officers that were going to resign anyways, warning of anything more than a measured withdrawal will be a retreat in defeat that will see dead Americans, loss of a 100 billion in equipment, and victory celebrations by Al Qaeda on top of abandoned, burning US tanks, radars, and the Embassy will be coming. And that it will be as cowardly and disgraceful as the Vietnam route.
Followed by a huge Internet campaign racing like wildfire in America covering all the humiliation and slaughter of the run in retreat,of the "stab in the back".
Next up will be officers and servicemen leaving service and speaking out saying they want no part of a military headed by a man who betrayed it.
Next will be news that the military is completely demoralized and failing to meet all recruiting goals. Obamessiah's begging of Jews and gays to join nets only 100 volunteers, as Iran shuts down the Straight of Hormuz and declares Iraq a Shiite dependency....
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Jewboy Ben writes - Look if you're dumb enough to listen to a man whose spent his entire adult life inside the military system, outside of their council on military matters thats your own fault. They fight and win wars, thats their job, they don't do so hot on the rest of the US citizen chart.
But of course, Ben supports the troops and the Vets, and don't you DARE question our little Transnationalist's patriotism!
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We have civilian leadership of the military for a compelling reason, and the Raddatz piece only strengthens that case.
Posted by Rich
The reason is to have leadership that has the mandate of the people instead of some lifetime Judge or Bureaucrat diresting the military - because in life and death, no one will listen or assign the level of credibility needed to what a lawyer in robes or a senior civil service flunky or even a caste of lifetime generals believes as they order career military and Draftees into harm's way...
Poor management of war by civilian leadership ignoring professional military advice has led to disasters more than any "rogue military element" ever did. Wilson in the Russian Civil War, Truman in Korea, LBJ and his civilian "whiz kids" ignoring military that told them Vietnam would be bloody and long and was the wrong place to confront the Soviets...Clinton and his civilians refusing to give the Army the armor they requested for Somalia, then Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feiths war with the all but in the open war with the military over Iraq postwar policy - involving the insurgency, de-Baathification, disbanding of a cadre of 80,000 battle-tested Sunni officers...and fostering the collapse of an Army and police it is costing US taxpayers over 140 billion to rebuild after the Bremer Decision (Bremer, the civilian official in charge in Iraq).
Poor management of war by civilian leadership ignoring professional military advice has led to disasters more than any "rogue military element" ever did...
But unlike any military element, rogue or not, civilian leadership is accountable to the voters for their incompetence every election cycle.
It is not difficult to forsee a confrontation between President Obama and the military over Iraq right off the bat. They simply will not be able to wash the sand off the Humvees and load them onto ships fast enough, etc. Obama and Petraeus are going to have it out, and I hope the former has the balls to prevail.
But unlike any military element, rogue or not, civilian leadership is accountable to the voters for their incompetence every election cycle.
Posted by Rich
No, you fail to understand the entire military is accountable to the chain of command, which is ruthless on competency matters (enlisteds that don't cut it are gone or work out the remainder their enlistment as de facto janitors. Officers stay only if their fitness report puts them in the cohort of peers selected to be retained - if they fall off the promotion track, in most fields, they are gone).
Civilian leadership accountable? Hah! What does that mean? You elect Democrats in 2006 to cut funding and end the war? Fat chance.
Losers like Carter and Bush have long, lucrative retirements. Rummy, Wolfowitz, Feith all have high six-digit book contracts.
"Jewboy Ben"- Actually Chris I'm of Irish descent and though the my dad is catholic, I'm protestant from my Mother's side. But thats enough of that.
Obviously you didn't catch the last half of my little statement. I've been around too many career military personnel who don't understand the housing market because they get a subsidized VA home loan when they retire (before they retire if they apply). Or healthcare since they have, to my knowledge, the only fully funded healthcare in the US. Or just dealing with a job, 9 to 5 and home, not a lifestyle 5 to UTC. Or even better here are 5 I'll call them cardinal sins I've seen repeated in the military by people who are career (none of these apply universally to every careerist theyr're just the greatest hits).
1.) Two-parter: Marrying a whore, and/or cheating on their wife or husband. That one while not exclusive to the military sure seems disproportionate.
2.) Forgeting what it was like having some TRADOC warrior telling you how to run combat patrols. Patrols that in the very real war get people killed.
3.) Complaining when subordinates desire things like their own place, their own food. Things you yourself wanted.
4.) Realizing that ultimately any pride you derive from your service may not mean much to your kids who didn't have a dad for years at a time. Or the wife who was left alone.
5.) You are living in an isolated environment that is very different from the surrounding environment. The loss of perspective that is incurred as part of living in a system that is separate and distinct from the outlying world. I cannot stress this one enough. 5 years in the US Army warped my thoughts and standards of cleaning, behavior, and just the method of doing things. So I can only imagine what 30 years would do.
If you're a US military veteran you're no longer in the career mode. So I do give more influence to Vets on issues broader in scope than the US military careerist.
So Chris I'm a meanie, I'm unfair. I don't give people a pass because they wear uniforms, are born-again Christians, volunteer, or work with the poor and sick. I don't give myself a pass, and I don't expect one. I don't believe in heroes, I know heroics exist I've watched the acts. What I don't do, what I refuse to do, is call anybody special. There are people out there who are special to me, but as a whole no two individuals appear much more different as people, though their beliefs may be polar opposites the person itself seems much the same.
>A New Hope
Is this a veiled callback to your "which order should you force your kids to watch the Star Wars movie" posting?
D'oh.
movies.
Comments closed July 25, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
So the military has become a Bush pawn too? I hope Obama, or one of his military supporters(who are retired), points that out.
Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | July 11, 2008 4:29 PM