Veterans, angry over Iraq, run for Congress

Different stances on war
The roster of Democratic veterans includes engineers, teachers, lawyers, business owners and a pastor. Their stands on the war range from calling for immediate withdrawal to demanding a clearer timetable and a way out. Fawcett, for example, says that pulling out now would be a mistake, but that the Bush administration has failed to clearly state its goals and an exit strategy.

Among other veterans running for office:

• Marine reservist Paul Hackett, who served in Iraq and is running for the Senate in Ohio. The Democrat narrowly lost a special House election last year in a district where President Bush won 64 percent of the vote in 2004.
• Former Army Maj. L. Tammy Duckworth, a helicopter pilot who lost her legs in a grenade attack in Iraq. She is running as a Democrat for the Illinois congressional seat of retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde. She said she privately disagreed with Bush’s decision to invade Iraq but still volunteered to serve. “We should have been fighting the enemies that attacked us at home on 9/11,” she said in December. “We should have been out there trying to catch Osama bin Laden.”
• Democrat Eric Massa, a 24-year Navy officer challenging freshman Republican Rep. Randy Kuhl in western New York.

Elections after the end of World War II and the Vietnam War also saw large numbers of veterans running for Congress.

Republicans this time around could have a difficult time countering opposition to the administration’s war plan — or the war itself — from veteran-Democrats, said Gary Jacobson, a congressional scholar at the University of California at San Diego.

“Popular sentiment is not terribly pro-war now, and there’s lots of doubts about the administration’s honesty and the purposes of the war,” he said. “So if you have a veteran come back and start trashing the war, that’s a problem for Republicans.”

Still, a veteran cannot count on an easy win, said Ed Patru, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

“Being a veteran, it’s great to have that on your resume,” he said. “People appreciate veterans, but if you’re wrong on taxes and the economy, the bread-and-butter, kitchen-tabletop kind of issues, being a veteran is not going to save you.”

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