Antiwar Ron Paul Rakes in Military Donations?Quarterly Reports Indicate Paul Raised More From Military Than Other Republicans

Congressman Ron Paul has defined his Republican presidential candidacy with a staunchly critical stance on the Iraq war, saying during the June 5 debate in New Hampshire, for example, that it was a "mistake to go and a mistake to stay."

 

Paul has often reiterated his views that US security has been worsened by its military presence in Iraq, and that Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine represented one of his administration's greatest moral failings.

 

One might think such criticism of the war and the Commander-in-Chief's leadership would make Paul a pariah to the military community, however, the latest figures indicate the antiwar Republican is receiving more donations from employees of the US military than any other Republican candidate.

 

The Presidential campaigns just released their quarterly campaign finance reports, leaving much of the mainstream media remarking on Paul's surge in online donations from his healthy Internet following, though the $2.3 million he raised still has him trailing far behind the front runners.

 

But a closer look at the reports reveals a less obvious but more remarkable development--the antiwar Republican received nearly 50% of the money donated by employees of the US military.

 

The site that crunched the numbers on the quarterly reports did not count donations coming from the US Marine Corps, which adds $1600 to the total of $15,825 total they report McCain raised from employees of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Veterans Administration. That failure slightly alters the conclusions they draw on the totals, since Paul received no money from Marines. Even so, the overall percentages indicate that the underdog candidate, whose overall fund raising cache is dwarfed by the leading pack of candidates, has appealed to segments of the military community.

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/...itary_Donations

 

Looks like the guys who have their asses in the sand know which candidate really supports the troops.

Nice. :cool

Wow, this is so skewed it's not even funny.

 

He's raised a grand total of $23,000 from employee's of every branch of the military. This means absolutely nothing. The total size of our military is approximately 2 million, and this doesn't include almost double the number of civilian employee's with the DoD and all 5 branches.

 

Also, only donations that are $200 or more are factored into these statistics, any donation that is below $199 is not included and I can tell you right now that no PFC, Lance Corporal, or Sergeant can afford to donate half of his entire paycheck to a friggen politician. I know I can't, and I know that all of my fellow Marines can't. This is hardly a representation of anything and to make the notion that the troops support one candidate or another based on these findings right here is downright absurd and this certainly does not justify anybody saying that the troops support him and his anti-war stance, because they don't.

 

And just to close this thing out and expose how ridiculously stupid it is to make a determination of the level of support based on these donations, let's really take a look at the numbers:

 

Army donations to Ron Paul: $6,975

Army donations to John McCain: $6,925

 

Since only donations of $200 or greater were used to determine these findings, that means that no more than 34 soldiers from the Army made donations to Ron Paul's campaign and 33 soldiers from the Army to John McCain's campaign, and it's far less for the other branches and you're going to sit there and tell me that "the troops support Ron Paul by a 50% margin?" Give me a break. I equate anyone who tries to use these statistics to make people believe that the troops overwhelmingly support Ron Paul, to pond scum. The sad thing is people will actually believe it rather than delve deeper into the numbers like I took the time to do and see that the whole thing is a steaming pile of BS.

It's the nature of the game.

As a liberterian, Ron Paul believes one function of the federal government is to provide for the defense of the citizens. Which means he supports the military. His gaining funds from the military is not a reflection that the troops are funding him bc hes antiwar. Its b/c of his voerall view of the military, with being against the war in iraq is one of them.

 

Also being against the war in Iraq does not make you 'antiwar'

This just in as well Ron Paul has pulled ahead in overall blog articles meaning nothing

This just in as well Ron Paul has pulled ahead in overall blog articles meaning nothing

:notworthy

 

Seriously. I've not seen a campaign in my lifetime that would harp on the most trivial things as if they were earth shattering events.

 

I can't wait for this guy to fade away.