U.S. 1st Lt. Nath Perry of Combained Joint Task Force 101 fills out an absentee ballot at a U.S. military base in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday October 15, 2008. Dems get new crop of military voters

An interesting subtext to John McCain’s defeat last week is what it means for the future of the Republican Party with respect to veterans and military voters. With McCain facing a diminished role in the GOP, and Chuck Hagel retiring from the Senate, there are few prominent Republican leaders left with military bona fides. This is in stark contrast to the Democratic Party, which has seen the emergence of a new generation of veteran leaders.

In the past two election cycles, Democrats have added ten new Democratic veterans to Congress. Last week, President-elect Barack Obama helped close the gap among military voters, winning 44 percent of veterans as opposed to John F. Kerry’s 41 percent in 2004.


To anyone who survived the bruising campaigns of the 1990’s, the thought that the Republican Party would surrender its stranglehold on military voters seems unbelievable. But the reality is that this image was never more than surface deep. All those political operatives who seemed to care so deeply about the heroic service of Republican nominees in 1992 and 1996 thought nothing of denigrating and attacking the service of Al Gore and John Kerry when it was the Republican candidate who had avoided serving in Vietnam.

Republicans did not always have a lock on military voters. Prior to Vietnam, military service was seen as an obligation of all Americans – regardless of political affiliation or wealth. George H.W. Bush and John F. Kennedy were both sons of privileged, politically-connected families who served heroically in the military during World War II. Back then, this was seen as your duty as an American – and no political party could lay an exclusive claim to the flag.

The GOP’s ability to market itself as the “Party of the Military” grew in large part from schisms in the electorate arising during the Vietnam era. For a generation, Republicans exploited George McGovern’s 1972 campaign as a means to brand Democrats as unpatriotic and weak on national security – never mind the fact that McGovern flew 35 bombing missions over Europe during WWII and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.

It was during these formative years as a budding Republican operative that Karl Rove learned the tools of the trade. Ironically, Rove avoided serving in Vietnam so he could sharpen the political skills he would later use to brand Al Gore a fraud, Max Cleland a coward, and John Kerry a traitor. Never mind that Al Gore enlisted in the Army; Max Cleland left three limbs on the battlefield; and John Kerry fought his way to three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star.

For decades, Republicans have worked to perfect the art of lapel pin patriotism – creating and exploiting iconic imagery for political gain while neglecting the substantive needs of our veterans. We see the devastating effect of this focus on rhetoric over reality in the dismal treatment of our wounded heroes at Walter Reed, attempts to block the new GI Bill, and the Bush Administration’s failure to adequately fund mental health care.

For all the GOP’s patriotic imagery and testosterone-infused rhetoric, the sad truth is that most of the current crop of Republican leaders – Rudy Giuliani; Mitt Romney; Newt Gingrich; Mitch McConnell; John Boehner; etc. – were all of age at the time of Vietnam but avoided serving in the military.

President Bush has almost single-handedly ended the GOP’s lock on veteran and military voters through his tragic mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I have seen the change among active duty members of the military firsthand. Our families have been torn apart by the intolerable rate and length of deployments – and even many solidly conservative members of the military will privately question the competence of Republican leaders.

Now, it will be up to a Democratic president to rebuild a military that has been pushed to the breaking point by a Republican. President-elect Obama will rebuild the military for the 21st Century by increasing the size of the Marine Corps and Army; restoring the readiness of the National Guard and Reserves; and fully equipping service members for the missions they face.

Domestically, the party that rushed us into war in Iraq has abandoned the needs of veterans here at home. It was a Democratic senator, Jim Webb of Virginia, who led the successful fight against the Bush Administration for a new GI Bill. It has been Democrats who have fought to expand health benefits for veterans, improve access to health care for reservists, and cut through the red tape at the VA.

The success of Democratic veteran candidates has reinforced this trend. This new generation of leaders is making its mark on the Democratic Party and changing the conventional wisdom on political support among veterans and military voters.

This is not to say that Democrats are inherently more patriotic than Republicans. There are honorable people from all walks of life and political affiliations serving in the military today. But no longer will the party of Harry Truman and John Kennedy sit idly by while Republicans attack our commitment and dedication to our country.

Peter Kauffmann is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project and a Vice President at the Glover Park Group. From 2002 – 2007, he served as an officer in the United State Navy.