WASHINGTON – In some corners of the Democratic Party, last week felt like déjà vu.
The party's vice-presidential nominee’s military record was under assault from Republicans — attacks reminiscent of those leveled two decades earlier on Sen. John Kerry during his run for the White House.
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Democratic strategists who lived through the Kerry onslaught, however, say the political landscape has changed so much since 2004 that they do not believe the attacks will land with the same resonance.
“It is 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 earlier this month of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the Democratic vice presidential nominee by attempting to pick apart his military record. Walz served for 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 in war and when he retired from service.
Kamala Harris' campaign has pushed back against the attacks, but some Democrats worry Republicans might succeed in turning Walz's military service into a liability. Others accused Republicans of attempting to “swift boat” Walz, a reference to the 2004 campaign and a sign of the campaign's continued relevance.
The origin of "swift boating"
Kerry’s campaign was caught flatfooted in the summer of 2004 by attacks that questioned whether the presidential candidate had earned his many commendations as a commander of a swift boat during the Vietnam War. Kerry received three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star.
By 2004, America was involved in two wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, had made his military service a centerpiece of the hard-fought presidential primary campaign, to the point of starting his nomination speech by saying he was “reporting for duty."
Republicans sought to undermine that selling point by raising questions about his Vietnam War service. An outside political group, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, led the anti-Kerry campaign, spending millions of dollars on hard-hitting television ads. One spot featured men who served in Vietnam questioning Kerry's leadership and heroism, as well as his fitness to lead the country; another blasted 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 me,” Kerry told NPR in 2018.
Some in Kerry’s campaign wanted to respond more forcefully, while others wanted to take a more cautious approach, concerned that focusing on the attacks would elevate them.
The campaign pushed back in the press but spent little money on costly television ads to address the controversy.
That trepidation, one-time Kerry advisers said, ensured that the public began to question the candidate's ability to handle national security matters.
Chris LaCivita — a top Trump campaign adviser — was one of the top Republican operatives behind the “swift boat” campaign. When Democrats compared the attacks on Walz to those on Kerry, LaCivita posted on X that the 2004 allegations “were never disproven.”
“Two things you don’t do is lie about the medals you received and whether or not you saw combat. Those are the two big sins. And he’s guilty of at least one of them,” LaCivita told The Associated Press last week.
Multiple veterans who served with Kerry refuted the accusations in 2004. Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the Bush campaign in 2004, said last week that the “swift boat” allegations were “ nearly all lies.”
Walz pushes back
The Trump campaign has sought to take a similar approach in criticizing Walz's service. Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has led the charge, accusing Walz of lying about his record. Vance, a Marine veteran, also accused Walz of abandoning his unit before it deployed to Iraq.
The Harris-Walz campaign has pushed back against the criticism. A campaign spokesperson told the AP that Walz “misspoke” in 2018 when he attempted to make a point on gun control by saying he carried weapons in a war. Walz did not see combat during his tenure in the Minnesota National Guard.
Walz’s first congressional campaign in March 2005 issued a statement saying he planned to run despite a possible mobilization that might send his soldiers to Iraq. According to the Guard, Walz retired from service in May 2005. Three months later, the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit. It was sent to Iraq in March 2006. The Harris-Walz campaign has pushed back against the Republican characterizations that Walz retired to avoid deploying to a war zone.
Walz achieved the rank of command sergeant major. But because he did not finish certain coursework before his retirement after 24 years in the National Guard, he retired as a master sergeant, a lower rank, for benefits purposes.
It is unclear how effective these GOP attacks will be. Democrats who worked on the Kerry campaign said they are likely not going to be as potent because so much has changed since 2004.
Flush with cash
The main reason: Campaigns are now flush with cash, making it easier to fight back.
In 2004, Kerry and President George W. Bush, the Republican nominee, took public funding, receiving $74.6 million each from the government, barring them from private donations. The decision, said Devine and others, handcuffed a campaign that wanted to focus on its preferred message.
“We were living in a world of limited resources where we had to make decisions about should we go on the air now, should we go on 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 collected before he stepped aside, is expected to raise well over $1 billion.
“If we were going to respond to those attacks in the paid media, we were going to need to spend money that we were going to need in October,” said Devine.
Walz is not the presidential nominee
The strategists pointed to other differences in today's environment.
Whereas the “swift boat” attacks were generated by an outside group relying on advertising, Republicans have largely hit 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 nominee — as Kerry was. Voters tend to focus on the candidates at the top of a ticket, something Trump himself has noted.
And then there is the issue of Trump. Could attacks on Walz’s 24 years of military service boomerang on the Republican standard-bearer? The former president has been criticized for avoiding military service over claims he suffered from bone spurs.
Despite the differences in the two campaigns, veterans of Kerry's run said Democrats should take to heart a lesson they learned the hard way: They waited too long to counterattack. Mark Mellman, Kerry's pollster, said Democrats should be particularly concerned about attacks on Walz's integrity, a key selling point of his candidacy. “To the extent that image is damaged,” Mellman said, “it can 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