Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004 | 10:49 a.m.
With polls showing veterans overwhelmingly supporting President Bush, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry today is expected to make a strong pitch for the veteran vote.
Kerry, a former Navy officer, has been increasing his criticism of Bush's handling of the war in Iraq over the last few days and will speak in Las Vegas today to the National Guard Association. He is expected to outline his foreign policy goals and plans for veterans benefits.
He'll speak to a crowd that gave Bush, a former National Guard officer, a warm reception at the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, especially when the president made strong promises to defend the country against terrorism.
Nationally, veterans favor Bush by as many as 20 percentage points in recent polls. But on Wednesday the Kerry campaign brought a group of veterans, headed by several generals, to Las Vegas to argue that Kerry's Vietnam experience makes him the better candidate.
"Let's get somebody else in there that has been one of the boots on the ground, who has been under fire," said Las Vegas resident Michael Selvage, an Air Force veteran.
Retired Lt. General Edward Baca said he has spoken to all 14 of the veterans who served on swift boats with Kerry in Vietnam, and all pledged support for the candidate.
Officers have to earn that kind of respect with strong leadership, he said.
"To demonstrate that kind of loyalty after 35 years indicates to me that he did something right," Baca said.
While veterans in Kerry's camp argue that only a veteran can understand the human consequences of war, some political watchers counter that a candidate's military experience matters less and less to voters today.
The National Defense political action committee, a group that helps people with military experience get elected to Congress, reports that more than 70 percent of U.S. senators and about 70 percent of members of the House of Representatives were veterans in 1975.
In 2003 about 35 percent of senators and less than 30 percent of the members of the House were veterans.
Eric Herzik, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, said it's not surprising that voters would give less weight to military experience in this generation.
He pointed out that George Herbert Walker Bush likely will be the last World War II veteran to serve as president. In the next election cycle, he said, there could be few -- if any -- Vietnam veterans.
And Bush, who is facing questions that he used connections to get into the National Guard so he didn't have to go to Vietnam, wasn't criticized Tuesday when he visited the guard convention.
"That's a good indicator for Bush because that was a potentially hostile crowd," Herzik said. "It will be interesting to see the relative warmth of the reception for the two."
Veterans make up about 14.6 percent of Nevada's population, giving the state the eighth-highest ranking population in the nation, said retired Major General Melvyn Montano.
Veterans typically lean Republican, and it's difficult to say why, said Joe March, spokesman for the American Legion.
"The irony of this is probably the veterans community, more than any other group across the nation, is more diverse when you consider ethnicity, race, color and creed," March said. "It's probably the widest perspective you'll find."
John Hunt, a former attorney general candidate in Nevada and co-chairman of Nevada's Veterans for Kerry, said he thinks some military members support the president now because he is the commander in chief.
It might be different on Election Day, he said.
"On that day, they can judge George Bush not as the commander in chief but just as one person trying to be the commander in chief," Hunt said.
Kerry took a hit in the polls in the past weeks as he was continually attacked by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that charges he didn't deserve the medals he received in Vietnam.
While some of those veterans have backed off their stories, the damage appears to be done, partly because the Kerry campaign didn't react quickly, some political watchers say.
"This should have been a two-day story," said David Damore, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The swift boat controversy adds to the Bush-Cheney campaign's charge that Kerry is a flip-flopper, Damore said.
"The Republicans, they've just successfully been able to define Kerry before he really had a chance to," Damore said. "He's been on the defensive the entire time."
Kerry will try to reduce the gap in veterans voting in his speech today, which is expected to center on foreign policy.
To focus on the veteran vote, Kerry can key on veterans benefits and show people he understands the pain and consequences of war, said John Hurley, the national director of Veterans for Kerry, who travels around the country to pitch Kerry to veterans.
"John Kerry understands the pain of war," Hurley said. "John Kerry understands the consequences of war. If anyone in that administration had been a combat veteran, they would understand how difficult it is."
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