A 21st Century Call to Duty

Ever since we fought for and won our independence from Great Britain, veterans of the armed forces have played a key role in our country's political process. After chopping down a cherry tree, George Washington was a general in the Continental Army before he was America's first president. The history of veterans as presidents, senators and representatives is as long as the history of our country and reflects our shared experiences of conflicts where Americans have fought and died. From George Washington and Revolutionary War veterans to Union (President Ulysses S. Grant) and Confederate veterans (Representative and Secretary of the Interior L.Q.C. Lamar II), veterans were there at the beginning of our country's political system and served together in government after serving across from one another on the battlefield in our nation's darkest hours.

In the last six years, the political mobilization of veterans, particularly in running for office, has become a cornerstone of the Democratic Party. Organizations like VoteVets and WesPAC and veteran candidates from the presidential level (the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, and candidate for the Democratic nomination, Wes Clark) to the congressional level to candidates for state and local offices are organizing and highlighting the call to public service of veterans in Democratic ranks — folks who have served our country and who have chosen to serve America again by running for office.

While the partnership between veterans and progressive politics is a natural and robust one, I think that the catalyst for the increased organization and heightened awareness of Democratic veterans has two sources: First, our ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and second, the smearing of Senator Max Cleland. The partisan terrorism against Senator Cleland occurred in Georgia's 2002 Senate contest, a race that pitted Democratic incumbent and decorated Vietnam veteran Max Cleland against a twice-deferred country club warrior in Republican Representative Saxby Chambliss. Chambliss' vile smearing of Senator Cleland (by outright slander and unsubtle implications that Cleland was weak on foreign policy and national security) shocked and outraged Democrats across the nation, but I think that it was a particularly galvanizing moment for Democratic veterans.

There is a larger issue worth noting and remembering about the 2002 Senate race in Georgia. Until this point in the post-World War II American electoral experience, military service was understood to be part of the landscape of politics. It was only notable when a candidate had not served in the military (see the attacks on Bill Clinton in both 1992 and 1996). It was also the case that up until the 2000 election, most veterans that had run for high offices were World War II veterans; World War II remains today a universally-acknowledged just war in America. It wasn't until 2000 that we had a presidential election that pitted two Vietnam-era veterans against one another. Unlike World War II, Vietnam was a very divisive conflict in the American experience, one that, as we saw in 2000, 2002, and 2004, is still highly politically charged for those who served in it, those who served stateside during the Vietnam War, and those who sought to make political hay from the service of their opponents.

To sum this larger issue up in a couple of lines, the Republicans and their tactics in the 2002 Senate race in Georgia debased military service and made it "fair game" for political attacks. This, in my experience, is the first time in the post-World War II era that military service went from being an expectation to being a method to slander a candidate.

And surprise of surprises, it was Republicans who did it. This desecration of service to America would have made even a pre-repentant Lee Atwater blush.

This slander was the mobilizing equivalent of a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point, a point where Democratic veterans were told in no uncertain terms by the Republican establishment that their service to their country was less important than their political affiliation — and even that their partisan identification made their service suspect.

They fought back.

While Chambliss' slime-and-run campaign against Senator Cleland helped him win his Senate seat, the broader mobilization that it sparked among Democratic veterans has helped to begin a wave that, I believe, will eventually swamp the contemptible accomplishment of the junior senator from Georgia.

The first evidence of this mobilization of Democratic veterans came during the 2004 campaign cycle. From the top of the ticket (Senator John Kerry) to some of the longest-shot Congressional districts in the country (David Harris in TX-6 against Republican stalwart and Big Pollution errand boy Joe Barton), veterans stood up to be counted as Democrats who served their country. Senator Cleland played a significant role in assisting this mobilization by making numerous campaign speeches for Democratic candidates, both veterans and non-veterans. After Senator Kerry secured the nomination for president and selected Senator John Edwards as his vice-presidential nominee, General Wes Clark stumped for and endorsed not only the Kerry-Edwards campaign, but also several campaigns of Democratic veterans running for the House of Representatives.

Even with such a decorated veteran as the Democratic nominee and with a country club flyboy in the White House, the Republican establishment still found a way to smear the combat service of a Democrat as less patriotic than the partying and missed flight physicals of the President. The 2004 election cycle introduced a new term into America's political lexicon: swiftboating, a practice inevitably practiced by Republicans against Democratic veterans. Once more, the message that Republicans sent to all veterans was, "Respect for your service is contingent upon your party affiliation."

Building on lessons learned and the momentum of the 2004 cycle, Democratic veterans played key roles in the surging reclamation of the House of Representatives and Senate as mobilizers, organizers and candidates. With the experiences of the 2004 cycle, an increasing level of public discontent with the decline of the United States under President Bush, and the pool of veterans growing by the month (many with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan), the 2006 election cycle formed into a perfect storm of opportunity for the still-growing Democratic veteran's movement.

Embracing Howard Dean's call to run everywhere in every election, veterans ran for many races at many levels of government. Thanks to the efforts of Max Cleland, Wes Clark, John Kerry and organizations like Vote Vets and WesPAC, four Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were elected to the U.S. House as new Democratic representatives. Hopefully, Representatives Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, Tim Walz and Chris Carney will be the first of a new generation of Democratic veterans who have chosen to serve their country in Congress after serving it in the military.

For Republicans, the bad news is that the leading groups in the Democratic veteran mobilization effort are all less than six years old and that disenchantment with the President and his policies is charting all time lows as we head into the heart of the 2008 election cycle.

For Democrats, both points above are great news, but are only part of the bigger picture. While we have seen the immediate results of supporting veterans who support progressive causes as candidates, the end goal is to see an expanded Democratic majority in the House, Democratic control of the Senate and a Democrat in the White House in 2008. Only after we've replaced the malfeasance and the stonewalling of the Bush administration will we be able to say that we have an administration that will meet the needs of those who have served our country as part of a larger progressive program for government.