By Larry Kaplow and Lennox Samuels

We don't have a scientific survey but would hazard to guess that most U.S. soldiers in Iraq are voting for Sen. John McCain. However, the spread between him and Sen. Barack Obama is probably much smaller than it was between George W. Bush and John Kerry four years ago. Meanwhile, military contractors, a motley crew ranging from accountants to bus drivers and usually attached to big defense companies, tend further toward the right than soldiers. And security contractors – former soldiers and cops pulling in lucrative incomes – are more right still. In that spirit, here are a few things we've overheard on U.S. installations in recent days about the upcoming elections:

"If Joe the Plumber wants a job, he should bring his ass to Iraq. There are plenty of plumbing jobs here,"—from a U.S. soldier who won't explicitly state his preference but we're guessing is for Obama. He says his vote is based on the economic problems he hears from his wife back home, not the Iraq war. "This is where the jobs are. We need to be doing this in America," he grouses, gesturing at the large U.S. infrastructure around him.

"My wife is talking about moving . . . to South Africa," said a U.S. logistics contractor lamenting a possible Obama victory that would leave America with an "even worse administration than the one we have now."

And from a Blackwater security guard there was this pithy declaration: "I'm voting against socialism." Well, Obama is on record saying there's too great a difference between the modest salaries of U.S. troops and the high pay for the private gunmen. It sounds like economics, not the Iraq war, might be their deciding factor, too.