“I don’t know if they’re real or not, but I’m seeing an awful lot of Ron Paul signs in people’s yards around where I live - and these are not crack neighborhoods either - regular middle-class homes.”
“Same story here in Virginia. The only signs I see in people’s yards are Ron Paul signs and I see them in respectable middle class neighborhoods. Also the only bumper stickers I’m seeing are Ron Paul and Obama and RP outnumbers Obama by roughly 3 to 1. Lots of military with RP stickers on their cars, too. From where I stand, the Ron Paul thing is for real.”
Same everywhere in Oklahoma and a significant part of Western Washington state.
Military to Cut Back on 'Stop Loss' | Associated Press | January 29, 2007
WASHINGTON - In an action branded a backdoor draft by some critics, the military over the past several years has held tens of thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines on the job and in war zones beyond their retirement dates or enlistment length.It is a widely disliked practice that the Pentagon, under new Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is trying to figure out how to cut back on.
Gates has ordered that the practice - known as "stop loss" - must "be minimized." At the same time, he is looking for ways to decrease the hardship for troops and their families, recruit more people for a larger military and reassess how the active duty and reserves are used.
"It's long overdue," said Jules Lobel, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and lawyer for some in the military who have challenged the policy in court.
"It has created terrible problems of morale," Lobel said last week. "It has in some cases made Soldiers feel that they were duped or deceived in how they were recruited."
In NH, Ron Paul signs outnumber all others. Large Romney signs are typically found in front of affluent houses; I suspect he is the pick of the country-club, party-before-philosophy set. There are a few Huckabee signs. I’ve seen no Hunter signs, alas.