Reply #15: one caveat [View All]

[progdonkey]

I would just like to mention that the stats shown could be extremely misleading. Primarily, it could be that the New York units are actually more adept at what is needed (or believed to be needed) in Iraq. Also, Texas is of course a much larger state than New York (and presumably with a larger military population), so it would follow that a single soldier that is called up in New York would reflect a higher ratio of call ups to the state's Army population than in Texas.

While I doubt that the 8 to 1 ratio is as simple as it appears with this stat, it is admittedly a very large ratio, and it certainly points to possible bias in favor of Bush's home state or red states. I just think the "real" bias, if it exists, would be closer to 2 or 3 to 1.

Now, if you could show that it really is that all blue states have a much higher call up rate compared to red states, that would definitely lean greatly towards blue states being specifically targeted for call-ups.