{"id":8114,"date":"2006-08-03T16:24:19","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T20:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8114.html"},"modified":"2006-08-03T16:24:19","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T20:24:19","slug":"voters-look-up-to-war-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/voters-look-up-to-war-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Voters look up to war heroes’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Pinkerton had an interesting column<\/a> in Newsday today about the tendency of voters to “look up to war heroes.” As he sees it, this makes John McCain the odds-on favorite to win not only the GOP nomination in 2008, but also the presidency. With all due respect to Pinkerton — a professor from my grad school — there are two important words missing from his piece.<\/p>\n

In times of war, warriors tend to rise to the top in politics. That’s good news for war veterans seeking elective office and bad news for non-vets of both genders. […]<\/p>\n

Today, relatively few Americans are involved with the armed services…. So when the real thing comes along – defined as comradeship, blood sacrifice and national honor – the voters snap to salute. […]<\/p>\n

Times of war are times for heroes. That’s good news for McCain, politically, and bad for just about every other ’08 hopeful. The other men, and women, who might be eyeing the White House will discover that talking the tough talk is a poor substitute for having walked the tough walk – the path of glory.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The two words missing from this analysis, of course, are “John Kerry.”
\n
\nI used to find Pinkerton’s thesis fairly compelling. Americans generally celebrate military service and hold decorated military heroes in the highest regard. But whether “voters snap to salute” is another matter entirely — recent history suggests the electorate appreciates those who wear a uniform, but it hardly guarantees campaign success.<\/p>\n

Consider this tidbit: in the last four presidential elections, the candidate with less military experience beat the candidate with more military experience.<\/p>\n

For that matter, those who followed a “path of glory” aren’t even guaranteed so much as a “thank you” on the campaign trail. John Kerry’s heroic service was not only questioned, it was smeared, mocked, and trivialized — all to benefit someone who lied about his military service<\/a> and failed to show up for duty<\/a> during a time of war.<\/p>\n

If Pinkerton’s right, 2004 shouldn’t have been close. It was a time of war, and voters had a choice between a hero and a candidate filled with “tough talk.” If memory serves, Pinkerton’s thesis didn’t hold together. The same goes for the 2000 primaries, when the Republican establishment and rank-and-file backed Bush over McCain in large numbers.<\/p>\n

I don’t doubt a strong military record can be a valuable asset in a presidential campaign, but if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that voters won’t necessarily reward heroic military service. Dems learned that lesson the hard way two years ago.<\/p>\n

Campaigns are always about the future — to think McCain or anyone else can have the edge based on what happened 30 years ago is mistaken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Pinkerton had an interesting column in Newsday today about the tendency of voters to “look up to war heroes.” As he sees it, this makes John McCain the odds-on favorite to win not only the GOP nomination in 2008, but also the presidency. With all due respect to Pinkerton — a professor from my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}