Military families meet with Michelle Obama

Obama's point woman with military families: his wife, Michelle Obama
Craig Lassig / Associated Press
MICHELLE OBAMA: Like military spouses, she juggles multiple roles — wife, mother, working woman — she says.
The voting bloc, which traditionally goes Republican, could prove crucial in swing states like North Carolina.
By Dahleen Glanton
October 26, 2008
Reporting from Jacksonville, N.C. -- As a major component of his presidential bid, Democratic nominee Barack Obama has deployed his wife on a mission to win over military families, many of them traditional Republicans. She has targeted the group with whom she hopes to forge an alliance -- wives of servicemen.

In a series of round-table discussions and rallies in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and New Mexico -- all battleground states -- Michelle Obama has discussed how she, like military spouses, juggles work and family. On the campaign trail she describes herself in simple terms -- a mother, a lawyer and a wife who grew up in a blue-collar family in working-class Chicago. (Educated at Harvard, she earned more than $300,000 in 2005 as a hospital executive.)

Wives vent to her about the difficulty of raising children while their husbands are away. They share stories about the loneliness, financial challenges and fears that come with being a military spouse.

"We all have some fundamental things in common," Michelle Obama recently told a crowd of veterans and relatives of service members from Camp Lejeune, N.C., from which nearly 60,000 Marines are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. "We share a vision of a system that does more to support military families, both when your loved ones are deployed and long after they return.

"We've all been touched by this economic crisis that our nation is facing. . . . You feel it when you pay for groceries . . . and when you fill up your tank," she said.


But the military is not a voting bloc that John McCain, the Republican nominee, will give up without a fight. He has enlisted a former Navy buddy and fellow prisoner of war in Vietnam to appeal directly to veterans. McCain's wife, Cindy, also has spoken to military groups.

Military voters in 2004 favored President Bush over Democratic challenger John F. Kerry, 57% to 41%. A poll released this month by the Military Times showed active-duty service members supporting McCain over Obama, 68% to 23%. However, the Military Times pointed out that the respondents were subscribers who were older, held more senior ranks and were less ethnically diverse than the military as a whole.

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On more huge point is that the bulk of military donations went to Obama and Paul. When it comes to voting with their wallets, they did not pick McCain. They understand that just because someone is a veteran, it does not mean they support veterans. They understand that while McCain has not served on the Veterans Affairs Committee, Obama has and since he added his weight to the issues for veterans, things have been changing for the better in the last couple of years. Before that, veterans were pretty much left out of the thought process of the congress. No matter what the Democrats tried to do to help veterans, they were blocked by people like McCain who said when it came to Jim Webb's GI Bill, it was "too generous" instead of wanting to do all that was possible for the sake of the veterans. McCain's record stinks when it comes to veterans and they understand this as well.