Republicans have spent decades strutting about, posturing as the party of national security and the military and Supporting Our Troops … but it turns out that when faced with Democratic opponents who are veterans, Republicans repeatedly trip over their own poses.
Like in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, where:
… an ad from Congressional Leadership Fund, the House GOP leadership-aligned super PAC, accusing Democratic candidate and combat veteran Jason Crow of truancy on a state veterans’ board and of having “turned his back on Colorado’s veterans.”
Local independent fact-checkers called the message “misleading” and one intoned, “shame on them.” It all quickly became fodder for a new Crow ad, an opportunity to remind viewers—through the words of the fact-checkers—of his biography.
Or in Maine, in a race where the Congressional Leadership Fund has attacked the Democrat for having tattoos, including a Marines tattoo:
Rep. Bruce Poliquin of Maine ran an ad that said of his Democratic opponent, “Who is the Jared Golden behind this T-shirt? A radical, liberal politician.” The shirt was a U.S. Marine Corps t-shirt (a spokesman for Poliquin’s campaign didn’t respond to several emails asking to talk for the story).
Laying out policy differences is fair game—veterans don’t get a free pass. But after insisting for years that veterans do get that fair pass and that Democrats are woefully out of touch and outright disrespectful, it’s funny to watch Republicans struggle with the rules they themselves set up. Then again, Republicans never expect to have their rules for Democrats applied to themselves.
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