Iraq Vets Join Electoral Races Against GOP
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- Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 11:23:28 -0600
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Iraq Vets Join Electoral Races Against GOP
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
The Denver Post - Dec 28, 2005
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3348791
Vets get in races to fight GOP
War experience touted for Dems. Veterans for a Secure America fields
candidates for Congress nationwide, including two in Colorado.
By Jim Hughes
Denver Post Staff Writer
More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional
races across the country as Democrats, hoping to capitalize on their
military experience to topple the incumbent Republican majority.
In Colorado, two former military men, Jay Fawcett and Bill Winter, are vying
for the House seats of two strong, entrenched Republicans: Rep. Joel Hefley
of the 5th Congressional District and Rep. Tom Tancredo of the 6th
Congressional District, respectively.
"Do we understand military and foreign affairs? You bet," Fawcett said.
"Most of us have been to the point where you get a direct dose of military
and foreign affairs, mostly in the category of small-caliber weapons. But we
understand that that is just one aspect of national policy."
On Dec. 20, Fawcett and Winter joined 35 Democratic veterans running for
Congress at a strategy session in Washington, D.C.
The veterans voted on a name for their emerging caucuslike campaign
coalition: Veterans for a Secure America. They also agreed that their
military backgrounds should be promoted as credentials for leadership across
the full spectrum of public policy, said Fawcett, an Air Force veteran of
the 1991 Gulf War who has taught at the Air Force Academy and now works as a
consultant to Northern Command in Colorado Springs.
The group will reconvene in Washington in February to respond to President
Bush's State of the Union address in a news conference on the steps of the
Capitol, Winter said. An attorney and the former president of the grassroots
liberal organizing group Be The Change, Winter spent 10 peacetime years in
the Marine Corps and the Navy.
Fawcett said the group is not anti-war but is concerned about what appears
to be a lack of a solid plan for the war in Iraq. He said the group's
military experience could be crucial in providing better leadership.
The war in Iraq, which polls show is now unpopular with most Americans, is a
growing political weakness for Bush and for Republican lawmakers, Democratic
strategists say. As proof, they point to the experience last summer of Paul
Hackett, an Iraq war veteran who narrowly lost a congressional bid in a
solidly Republican district in Ohio. Hackett now is running for Senate.
"Iraq is in the eye of the beholder in many ways, but increasingly, the
public is viewing it negatively," said Rick Ridder, a Democratic consultant
in Denver. "I certainly think there is a greater momentum now among
(Democratic) veterans, after Hackett did so well in a predominantly
Republican district."
But Republicans are confident they can maintain their traditional strength
among voters focused on the military and veterans' issues, said Carl Forti
of the National Republican Congressional
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Campaign Committee, which recruits Republican candidates across the country.
"People may not like the war, but they still believe that Republicans will
do a better job of protecting them than Democrats," Forti said. "And if
Democrats want to try to make an issue of the war and security, especially
Democrats who have a voting record - they have an abysmal voting record on
defense spending."
At least two military veterans have entered congressional races as
Republicans, one of them a veteran of the Iraq war, Forti said.
If Democrats think they can create a winning election-year theme with
veterans as candidates, they are wrong, Forti said.
"They have two major problems: Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean," he said.
Pelosi, the Democratic House minority leader from California, wants the U.S.
to pull out of Iraq. Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee,
recently said the U.S. would not prevail there. Both are unpopular
positions, Forti said.
"These are Democrats who happen to be military veterans who are running for
Congress," he said of Veterans for Security. "It's one résumé item. Just
because you are a military guy doesn't make you a congressman."
Forti's counterparts at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are
not actively recruiting military veterans, spokeswoman Sarah Steinberg said.
"They absolutely serve a very good contrast against Republicans," she said.
"But in every district, our goal is to recruit the best possible candidate
we can."
In Colorado, both Fawcett and Winter are likely to face uphill battles
against the Republican incumbents.
Hefley, who has not said yet whether he will seek re-election, has been
elected to represent his heavily Republican district nine times before. And
Tancredo is on a roll, Winter acknowledged, having emerged as a national
conservative leader in the push to change immigration laws.
Copyright 2005 The Denver Post
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