Will the attacks on Walz’s military service stick like they did to Kerry 20 years ago?
WASHINGTON — In some corners of the Democratic Party, the past week has felt like déjà vu.
The military record of the party’s vice presidential candidate came under attack from Republicans – attacks reminiscent of those two decades earlier directed against Senator John Kerry during his campaign for the White House.
However, Democratic strategists who witnessed Kerry’s attack say the political landscape has changed so much since 2004 that they don’t believe the attacks will have the same resonance.
“It’s a very different world,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Kerry’s 2004 campaign.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign responded to the selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the Democratic vice presidential nominee earlier this month by attempting to dissect his military record. Walz served 24 years in the Minnesota National Guard, but Trump’s campaign has criticized him for using imprecise language to describe how he carried a weapon during wartime and in retirement.
Kamala Harris’ campaign has pushed back against the attacks, but some Democrats worry that Republicans are turning Walz’s military service into a liability. Others accused Republicans of trying to “swift” Walz, a reference to the 2004 campaign and a sign of the campaign’s continued relevance.
Kerry’s campaign was besieged in the summer of 2004 by attacks questioning whether the presidential candidate deserved his many decorations as a swift-boat commander during the Vietnam War. Kerry received three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.
In 2004, America was involved in two wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, had made his military service a centerpiece of the hard-fought presidential primary campaign, to the point that he began his nomination speech by saying he was “reporting for duty.”
Republicans tried to undermine that selling point by raising questions about his service in the Vietnam War. An outside political group, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, led the anti-Kerry campaign, spending millions of dollars on heavy-hitting TV ads. One place men who served in Vietnam who questioned Kerry’s leadership and heroism, as well as his fitness to lead the country; another one criticized Kerry’s participation in later anti-war protests.
The ads were effective.
“I remember being in Ohio and listening to that ad. And I called my campaign headquarters and said, guys, I just heard an ad. And if I heard that ad, I wouldn’t vote for myself,” Kerry told NPR in 2018.
Some in Kerry’s campaign wanted a stronger response, while others wanted to proceed more cautiously, fearing that focusing on the attacks would make the situation worse.
The campaign responded in the press, but spent little money on expensive television ads to address the controversy.
That concern, former Kerry advisers said, led the public to doubt the candidate’s ability to handle national security matters.
Chris LaCivita — a top Trump campaign adviser — was a key Republican operative behind the “swift boat” campaign. When Democrats compared the attacks on Walz to those on Kerry, LaCivita posted on X that the 2004 allegations “have never been refuted.”
“Two things you shouldn’t do are lie about the medals you’ve been given and whether or not you’ve been in combat. Those are the two great sins. And he’s guilty of at least one of them,” LaCivita told The Associated Press last week.
Several veterans who served with Kerry refuted the allegations in 2004. Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for Bush’s 2004 campaign, said last week that the “fast boat” allegations were ” almost all lies.”
The Trump campaign has attempted to take a similar approach in criticizing Walz’s service. Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, has led the charge, accusing Walz of lying about his service record. Vance, a Marine veteran, has also accused Walz of abandoning his unit before it was deployed to Iraq.
The Harris-Walz campaign has pushed back against the criticism. A campaign spokesman told the AP that Walz “slipped up” in 2018 when he tried to make a point about gun control by saying he was carrying weapons in a war. Walz did not see combat during his time in the Minnesota National Guard.
Walz’s first congressional campaign in March 2005 issued a statement stating he planned to run despite a possible mobilization that could send his troops to Iraq. According to the Guard, Walz retired in May 2005. Three months later, the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit, which deployed to Iraq in March 2006. The Harris-Walz campaign has pushed back against Republican characterizations that Walz retired to avoid being sent to a war zone.
Walz rose to the rank of command sergeant major. But because he failed to complete certain courses before his retirement after 24 years in the National Guard, he retired as a master sergeant, a lower rank, for benefits.
It’s unclear how effective these GOP attacks will be. Democrats who worked on the Kerry campaign said they probably won’t be as powerful because so much has changed since 2004.
The main reason: campaigns now have a lot of money at their disposal, making it easier to fight back.
In 2004, Kerry and President George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, accepted government funding, each received $74.6 million government, barring them from private donations. The decision, Devine and others said, hamstrung a campaign that wanted to focus on its preferred message.
“We lived in a world of limited resources where we had to decide whether we were going to go on the radio now, whether we were going to go on the radio later,” said Steve Elmendorf, Kerry’s deputy campaign manager. The Harris-Walz campaign “doesn’t have those constraints.”
Public funding is a thing of the past and Harris’ operation raised a staggering $310 million in July. The Democratic campaign, aided by what President Joe Biden raised before leaving office, is expected to raise well over $1 billion.
“If we were to respond to those attacks in paid media, we would have to spend the money that we would need in October,” Devine said.
The strategists pointed to other differences in the current environment.
While the “swift boat” attacks were generated by an outside group relying on advertising, Republicans have largely attacked Walz on social media and in interviews. Such broadsides may reach the GOP base, but not the independent voters who will decide the election.
Walz is also not the presidential candidate — as Kerry was. Voters tend to focus on the candidates at the top of a ticket, something that Trump himself has also noticed.
And then there’s the matter of Trump. Could attacks on Walz’s 24 years of military service backfire on the Republican standard-bearer? The former president has been criticized for avoiding military service because claims he suffered from bony protrusions.
Despite the differences in the two campaigns, veterans of Kerry’s run said Democrats should heed a lesson they learned the hard way: They waited too long to counterattack. Mark Mellman, Kerry’s pollster, said Democrats should be especially concerned about attacks on Walz’s integrity, a key selling point of his candidacy. “To the extent that image is damaged,” Mellman said, “it could be quite problematic.”
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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Cincinnati and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.