… [M]ost commentators assume that the military “naturally” supports Republicans over Democrats. But will “the military vote” really favor Romney next week? …
There’s no single reliable source of information on political views of military personnel. But perhaps the best recent studies of military attitudes come from Jason Dempsey, an Army lieutenant colonel and veteran of West Point’s social science faculty. Dempsey conducted exhaustive research on the attitudes of Army personnel, both through the analysis of older studies and through his own polling.
Overall, he found that social and political attitudes of Army personnel track fairly closely with the views of the civilian population. On certain issues, Army personnel are in fact decidedly more liberal the general population. [cont.]
Rosa Brooks, Georgetown U. (foreignpolicy.com)