I am a little leery about getting so many military in the race next year.

[madfloridian]

We are up to 35 now, according to this article. Also, I am understanding that the majority are not so much anti-war...rather they don't like the way Bush handled this one.

I know what our Democrats are doing. Even Howard Dean appears to be going along with the concept that we must appear stronger on nation defense. Some of us have written him about our feelings on this. He wants to win, has to win, or he is gone. I just don't want him getting DCified in his thinking.

I don't think an Iraqi veteran is any better qualified than others who might run. Also the fact that many of them are inexperienced gives me a little hesitancy as well. We need new faces, but the thought of so many military in congress does not seem just right.

This is not a popular view, and I see some got crucified at a moderate blog for questioning. I hope I don't have that happen, but I am very afraid we are being rather naive. It seems like we think we might "fool" the Republicans, but I don't think we need to do that at all. I think we are pretty powerful on national security already. We just need to be ourselves, and not hush up our truthspeakers.

Here is the article, and I have doubts.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3348791

Vets get in races to fight GOP
War experience touted for Dems. Veterans for a Secure America fields candidates for Congress nationwide, including two in Colorado.
By Jim Hughes
Denver Post Staff Writer

More than 30 Iraq and Persian Gulf War veterans have entered congressional races across the country as Democrats, hoping to capitalize on their military experience to topple the incumbent Republican majority.

The article mentions that there may be as many as 37 running now. Here is more on it.

On Dec. 20, Fawcett and Winter joined 35 Democratic veterans running for Congress at a strategy session in Washington, D.C.

The veterans voted on a name for their emerging caucuslike campaign coalition: Veterans for a Secure America. They also agreed that their military backgrounds should be promoted as credentials for leadership across the full spectrum of public policy, said Fawcett, an Air Force veteran of the 1991 Gulf War who has taught at the Air Force Academy and now works as a consultant to Northern Command in Colorado Springs.

The group will reconvene in Washington in February to respond to President Bush's State of the Union address in a news conference on the steps of the Capitol, Winter said. An attorney and the former president of the grassroots liberal organizing group Be The Change, Winter spent 10 peacetime years in the Marine Corps and the Navy.

And they point out that they are looking back at how well Hackett did in Ohio. What may be a problem is that Paul Hackett was a unique individual, not something you can duplicate easily. The spokesman makes it clear they are not anti-war, just feel like they could manage it better.

Fawcett said the group is not anti-war but is concerned about what appears to be a lack of a solid plan for the war in Iraq. He said the group's military experience could be crucial in providing better leadership.

The war in Iraq, which polls show is now unpopular with most Americans, is a growing political weakness for Bush and for Republican lawmakers, Democratic strategists say. As proof, they point to the experience last summer of Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran who narrowly lost a congressional bid in a solidly Republican district in Ohio. Hackett now is running for Senate.

I think that some need to speak out on this. I am so tired of war being used, and I don't want us doing that as well. I know what the party is trying to do...win. I am just not sure this is a winning tactic.

I was not going to write about this, but I saw some people get skewered at so-called liberal blogs for speaking out on this. I don't like that.