Wednesday, Oct. 08, 2008

Views on defense spending, war crucial to voters

After seven years of war, what the presidential candidates think about the military and defense spending is important to voters in military-friendly South Carolina.

While most South Carolinians rate the economy as the No. 1 issue in the Nov. 4 election, they’re also tracking U.S. Sens. John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s views on military-related issues.

Backers of Republican candidate McCain share the Arizona senator’s view that U.S. troops should remain in Iraq for the long haul.

“We can fight (terrorists) over there or over here,” said 58-year-old Sylvia Gibson of Columbia, whose son is in the Coast Guard.

But Victoria Clinton, 23, of Columbia backs Democratic candidate Obama, who opposed the war in Iraq from the start.

“I just want to see it over with,” said Clinton, who lost a Richland Northeast High School classmate in the Iraq war and has another friend serving with the Marines in Iraq.

The Palmetto State has felt the impact of fighting simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Seventy-five service members with S.C. ties have died in the two wars. In addition, thousands of active-duty service members and thousands more S.C. National Guard soldiers and airmen have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military also makes a significant contribution to the S.C. economy.

The economic impact of the Army’s largest training center, Columbia’s Fort Jackson, plus installations in Sumter, Charleston and Beaufort totaled $7.3 billion a year, according to a 2004 study by USC’s Moore School of Business.

The same study estimated some 142,000 S.C. jobs are supported directly or indirectly by the military.

In August, a Winthrop/ETV poll found nearly six out of 10 likely S.C. voters think McCain, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war, would handle the 5-year-old Iraq war better than Obama.

(No question was asked in the poll about Afghanistan, where the United States has been fighting since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.)

“John McCain is the only qualified candidate,” said Charlie Tronco, 61, of Columbia, citing the senator’s military resume.

Tronco backs McCain’s argument that winning the war in Iraq is key to the U.S. strategy in the Middle East of making the United States more secure.

“One thing we have to have in this country is knowing we’re secure,” Tronco said.

Sixty-one-year-old Chris Chilton of Columbia, an Air Force veteran, thinks McCain has the experience to be commander in chief.

“Obama doesn’t know anything about it,” Chilton said, noting McCain’s military pedigree includes being the son of a Navy admiral. “But I also think being a prisoner of war humbled him. It made him a better man.”

At 18, Michael Clinton will be voting in his first presidential election. He, like his sister Victoria, backs Obama.

“The war in Iraq has gone on long enough,” he said. “The best thing Obama can do for the soldiers is to bring them home.”

Although Obama did not serve in the military, Frank Cooper, 47, of Columbia thinks the Democrat has the right temperament to be commander in chief.

Cooper compares Obama to the late Ronald Reagan, a Republican who was president from 1981-89.

“He says what he means,” Cooper said of Obama. “He’s steady, he has not deviated from his plan in any way. You know where he stands.”

Cooper also thinks Obama is right in proposing U.S. officials talk to leaders of rogue nations, including Iran, which has emerged as a power in the Middle East after the fall of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.

“He can restore the world’s respect for the US of A,” Cooper said.

A defense issue important to voters like 31-year-old Robbie Bell of Lexington is how the country cares for service members after they get home.

More money needs to be spent on health care and programs to assist military families, said Bell, a Navy veteran and McCain supporter.

“We need to beef it up as well as funding protective gear and equipment for service men and women,” Bell said.

Reach Crumbo at (803) 771-8503.