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By Tom Elia and David Rogers
August 30, 2004
The New Editor
By making Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War experience the strategic centerpiece of his
presidential bid, Kerry's campaign strategists -- intending to emphasize his strength -- instead
exposed many of the candidate's political weaknesses.
This decision makes one wonder: What was the Kerry campaign thinking when they chose
such a strategy?
In fact, the truth is that Sen. Kerry's decision to emphasize his record in Vietnam above all
else was a high-risk gamble, most probably to divert attention from his voting record
concerning both foreign policy and defense issues in the US Senate, where he repeatedly
voted against US defensive and offensive measures in the Cold War, against fighting the first
Gulf War, and against funding the second Gulf War.
In adopting this strategy, Kerry's campaign failed to consider three very predictable
weaknesses in making such a strategy the centerpiece of his campaign -- or they realized
these weaknesses, but felt they had no choice but to pursue the strategy given the public's
negative perception of the Democratic Party's overall record on issues of national defense.
First, the strategy fails to consider historical precedents. The two greatest wartime presidents
in US history -- Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- never served in the
military. The Bush Administration's performance may not compare with either of these two
great presidents (though it is worth noting that despite some successes, neither of these two
presidents had won the war they led by the third anniversary of their beginnings), but Bush in
fact served in the military more than either Lincoln or FDR did. It is not without historical
precedent that non-combat-veterans (or non-veterans) have been good wartime leaders, who,
incidentally, have also won handily at the polls during wartime.
In 1864 the Democrats nominated former Commander of the Army of the Potomac Gen.
George McClellan to run against Lincoln, who overwhelmingly defeated McClellan that year.
In fact, it was the sixth worse defeat in Electoral College history (the only opposition
candidates to fare worse in the Electoral College were Charles Pinckney in 1804, John Quincy
Adams in 1820, Alf Landon in 1936, George McGovern in 1972, and Walter Mondale in
1984).
Additionally, there are plenty of examples of both good and poor presidents who were military
heroes or veterans (good ones include George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Teddy
Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower; poor ones include Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce,
James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, and Jimmy Carter); this of course
doesn't even consider the number of bad presidential candidates who happened to be war
heroes, like the aforementioned George McClellan and George McGovern, not to mention
Winfield Scott in 1852. Positioning Kerry as a war hero was far from a sure-fire strategy.
Second, while it is inarguable that Kerry served honorably in Vietnam, his campaign tried to
elevate his service, making it seem extraordinary in comparison with other Vietnam vets. In a
sense, Kerry's campaign tried to position Kerry as a Vietnam version of World War II hero
Audie Murphy or World War I hero Alvin York -- a tall order for anyone to pull off. This
attempt at aggrandizement ignored the time-tested commonsense political approach of being a
hero -- let someone else talk of it if you must, but never emphasize it yourself; Americans
prefer that their heroes be modest.
Third, the campaign inexplicably ignored the inherent conflict of the two competing sides of
Kerry's Vietnam experience. Senator Kerry wasn't simply a Vietnam veteran who became a
minor anti-war activist, nor was he simply a leader in that movement; rather, he was someone
who accused his fellow Vietnam veterans of widespread atrocities, committed with the full
knowledge of thousands of soldiers, with the tacit approval of those up the chain of
command. These were accusations that could be characterized as political hyperbole at best,
and they infuriated many vets -- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents -- who
themselves neither committed nor saw any such atrocities.
The rhetoric of Vietnam heroism also looks especially self-serving when one considers that
Kerry twice ran for Congress during the time he was actively denouncing the war in Vietnam
and his fellow veterans -- both times as a committed anti-war candidate when the military
was decidedly out of favor with the media and much of the public. To then turn around and
emphasize Kerry's war record after such brazen anti-war activity -- laced with accusations of
war crimes "reminiscent of Genghis Khan" -- without ever apologizing to his fellow veterans
for his youthful overstatements or even attempting to reconcile the two positions, was a
serious political blunder.
In sum, making Kerry's service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his political strategy had limited
political upside, which was offset with inordinate downside risk. If one assumes that the
Democratic Party's coalition is a healthy one, this strategy was not clearly thought out in
advance.
However, if one believes this was a clearly vetted strategy, it is more evidence of the glaring
weakness in the Democratic Party's coalition -- evidence provided by the campaign of the
party's own presidential nominee -- that is, today's Democratic Party apparently cannot
support a candidate who is strong on defense, yet the rest of the country will not elect a
candidate for president who follows such tenets. As a result, the Democrats have nominated
someone who tries to have it both ways -- and it just doesn't wash.
Tom Elia and David Rogers are contributing editors to The New Editor.
Paul Geary
David Rogers