Yup! In 2008 I was in my first job, working for a defense contractor, and my boss seriously could not wrap his head around the idea of me voting for Obama. In his mind that should have gone completely against my own self-interest.

But he also saw the job as a lifetime career, which is partly generational and partly just a different mindset because a lot (most?) of the engineers there were former military.

I will say, though, that his mindset generally made for a very friendly and nurturing team experience.

Is there something uniquely strategic about property owners in Southern Pines?? If anything, based on my knowledge, military contractors would be the strategic play down there (just as in VA/MD).

Camp Mackall, Fort Bragg, the complex around those two, and an officer corps/civilian contractor base that enjoys golf.

I was just giving it as an example of how whole tertiary industries that aren't directly part of the military-industrial complex will none-the-less vote (R) like their lifestyle depends on it, and for the same reason as contractors.