"We're going to take that Hill", vowed Richard Klass, executive director of the Veterans' Alliance for Security and Democracy (VETPAC) on a late September morning at Washington's Phoenix Park Hotel. Klass was speaking before as many as one hundred reporters and photographers as he introduced Congressman Jack Murtha (D-PA), the outspoken critic of the Iraq War and ex-Marine, who in turn introduced a dozen of the lesser-known of this year's 57 "Fighting Dem" military-vet candidates. If "we" is understood to mean Democrats generally, Klass was prescient: Scores of aggressive Democratic campaigns around the country this year coupled with public unrest over Iraq and displeasure with Republican-dominated Washington to flip both houses of Congress in what even President Bush called a "thumpin'" of the Republican Party. The key issue, of course, was Iraq.
If "we" is taken to mean military-vet candidates, however, the story is more complicated. Two of the twelve Democratic military vets present that morning with Klass and Murtha would end up winning-a percentage within shooting distance of the rather small total number of "Fighting Dem" victories in this year's midterms (six of a total 57), which itself is not so different a proportion than the number of veterans in the general public (around 10 percent). The rest of the party would storm the halls of Congress. Which prompts a question: Did the much-discussed "Fighting Dems" really matter much?
