I'm sure there are quite a few republicans in the 2.7 million members of the NEA (I
work with quite a few of them). I'm a member of AOPA and a member of NEA, hmmmm, who
would I have voted for? Don't judge a person's voting habits solely on the groups they
belong to.

Margy

David H wrote:

Michael wrote:

Bart wrote
I mean if there's 300,000 ish AOPA members out there, then that's an important
block of votes.

No it's not. It's a tiny, insignificant block of votes.

That's got to be one of the biggest PAC's next to AARP.

It's not even on the same order of magnitude as AARP. I believe AARP
is at least 100 times bigger than AOPA.

True, but AOPA sits astride a unique demographic: I'd guess that pilots gnerally
vote overwhelmingly Republican. To the extent that they might be willing to
withold their votes from this president (or - gasp! - even vote for someone else),
they could potentially move a lot more votes than a group whose voting record is
much more evenly divided across the political spectrum.

I agree that in raw numbers, the "pilot vote" doesn't look like it's very big. But
since the vast majority of pilots probably voted for Dubya last time, AOPA could
potentially have an impact that's much greater than the raw numbers suggest.

For example: You **** off the National Education Association (mostly Democratic
voters) and this president doesn't stand to lose much - not too many NEA members
voted for Bush last time. But **** off 400,000 AOPA members - who (I suspect) DID
vote for Bush in droves last time - and there might be a real price to pay in the
next election. At least that's what I like to think.

Those who were paying attention will recall that the last presidential election was
- ahem - CLOSE. I think the next one will be too. Every vote counts
(well...except in Florida, of course

David H
Boeing Field (BFI), Seattle, WA