Democrats Are Ignoring One Key Voting Group: Veterans

[brooklynite]

New York Times:

With control of Congress at stake in next month’s midterm elections, Democrats have a rare opportunity to gain a foothold against President Trump’s Republican Party. But if they come up short, it may be in part because of a failure to pursue a key group of voters. It’s a constituency that makes up 13 percent of the voting population, enjoys high voter turnout and is especially concentrated in some decisive swing states. That group is military veterans — and in the battle for their votes, the Democratic Party lags far behind the Republicans.

According to organizers on both sides of the contest, the Democratic National Committee seems to be pursuing a strategy that focuses on running veterans as candidates instead of organizing to reach veteran voters — the D.N.C. tried that approach more than a decade ago, and it didn’t work. In the 2006 midterm elections, Democrats positioned their party as a check against an increasingly unpopular Republican president whose decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan had worn thin with much of the United States electorate. The D.N.C. established the Veterans and Military Families Council, hoping to drum up support from military members who had seen enough of these wars. No longer, Democrats argued, would their party be pigeonholed as indifferent to the plight of service members. The council coordinated voter outreach in military communities and advanced dozens of veterans as candidates in contentious midterm battles and nicknamed them the “Fighting Dems.”

Democratic opposition to the Bush administration’s wars resonated with voters, who put them in control of Congress for the first time in more than a decade. It was the most sweeping Democratic wave since Watergate, but one of the Democrats’ key missions remained unaccomplished: Only six of the 49 Fighting Dems won their elections. Even though voters had favored Democratic candidates by an average margin of nearly 12 points in opinion polls, the military veterans running as Republican candidates, both challengers and incumbents, collectively saw higher vote shares than the Democrats’ heavily promoted veterans.

Twelve years after the first corps of Fighting Dems was routed, Democrats appear poised for another blue wave. The party is investing millions in organizing what the D.N.C. chairman, Tom Perez, calls “base communities” — a diverse mix of rural whites, ethnic minorities and young people of the sort that vaulted Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. The D.N.C. is partnering with some new grass-roots organizing groups, and Perez has pledged that the party would build up state-party infrastructures, hire full-time organizers and hold events in churches, on college campuses and in other public spaces in base communities year-round. But this investment does not include any focus on reaching veterans. D.N.C. staffers instead contend that the party’s broader messages will filter into military and veteran voting blocs.

[Pantagruel]

3. Just out ysterday

this needs more exposure:

Veterans Affairs won't hand over documents showing suspected shadow influence of Trump associates

Source: Think Progress

"The reports of corruption and cronyism are serious," Rep. Tim Walz said.
JOSHUA EATON
OCT 9, 2018, 7:28 PM

The Department of Veterans Affairs won’t give Congress records that could show the undue influence friends of President Donald Trump have over agency policy, MilitaryTimes reports.

A bombshell investigation by ProPublica in August revealed that three close Trump associates — Ike Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment; Bruce Moskowitz, who works in concierge medicine; and Marc Sherman, an attorney— have ruled the VA as unappointed, and unconfirmed, shadow officials from their base at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie assured lawmakers at a hearing last month that the “Mar-a-Lago Crowd,” as it’s known within the agency, doesn’t set policy. But emails published by ProPublica tell a different story.

“The reports of corruption and cronyism are serious and we cannot allow VA to sweep this under the rug,” Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), the ranking member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement to MilitaryTimes. “This issue will remain a top concern of the committee until all our questions have been answered.”


Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/veterans-affairs-documents-shadow-influence-trump-associates-78ede27ce604/

[gratuitous]

2. Jasper Craven's concern is duly noted

After all, veterans are too stupid to recognize which party is in power right now, and must be specially catered to if they're going to support the party whose candidates are actual veterans instead of tough-talking chickenhawks who never saw a war they didn't think poor people should fight for the wealthy.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

6. You'd think so

We'll see in the Maine 2nd district race how is actually plays out. Young dem war vet versus incumbent repub with no military experience. I'm afraid people are too set in their ways with their party affiliation that they no longer think. They'll just vote repub without even understanding what they are voting for. Repub has tons of money in his campaign. Trying to paint the vet guy like he's some Nancy Pelosi loving socialist. They'll say anything. There doesn't have to be an ounce of truth to it.

[Aristus]

4. Since, statistically speaking, 50% of veterans are kissing up to Cadet Bonespurs,

maybe they think it's not worth it.

The Democratic Party has this veteran's vote. Now and forever. I don't want them spending time or money trying to earn something they already have.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

5. Democrats in Maine's 2nd congressional district are running a young ex-Marine (Jared Golden)

The incumbent Republican Bruce Poliquin is an ex-Wall Street guy with no military experience. Stupid that this is even a close race. That is how nuts some people have gotten. They don't look at who is running and what they are offering. Just the party.