It doesn’t matter if you’re pro-military or anti-military, if there’s one thing we’ve learned as a nation over the past seven years, it’s this: Placing under-qualified know-it-alls in charge of America’s Armed Forces can lead to devastating national and international consequences.
That’s essentially our guiding principle at VoteVets.org. And it’s why we ran nine military veteran candidates for Congress in 2006--two of whom won seats. It was a resounding success for a new PAC promoting relatively unknown candidates.
But we still only had a 22 percent success rate during that cycle--a fact which begs the question: Why? The answer is that winning Congressional seats is hard--especially when candidates have extensive military experience, but little practical political experience.
Thus, we learned very quickly that the key to building a long-term, progressive cadre of national leaders with on-the-ground foreign policy experience is to have a "deep bench" as they say in sports. In order to win House and Senate seats for years to come, we have to be able to put up candidates that have years of political experience under their belts. And as we’ve seen over the past two, just being an Iraq vet doesn’t cut it in the hyper-competitive world of Washington politics.
That’s why we’ve devised a "farm team" of progressive candidates with hands-on national security experience. We’ve created a program for like-minded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans called Emerging Leaders. In this program, we recruit vets with little to no political experience and promote them in state and local races. We’ve also incorporated a number of Iraq and Afghanistan who have already won state and local races in the past few years. The idea is to develop seasoned leaders who are more than capable of not only running for federal office in the coming years (should they choose to), but of winning. By cultivating their political careers at the earliest stages, we’ll help them to become U.S. senators and members of Congress down the road.
These veterans will eventually become the answer to the McCains, Grahams, and Liebermans of the world when it comes to the question of whether or not to start a war.
So, with that, I’d like to introduce you to our 14 Emerging Leaders at VoteVets. The first eight are first-time candidates, and they need all the help you can afford to give them. The second six have already been elected to state and local offices, but several of them are fighting tough re-election battles this year. Please take a look at their complete profiles and visit their respective websites.
First-time Candidates
Stephen Webber
Iraq Vet
Running for Missouri State House
Jason Kander
Afghanistan Vet
Running for Missouri State House
Miranda Norman
Iraq Vet
Running for Oklahoma State House
Richard Riggs
Iraq Vet
Running for Oregon State House
Donald Bortz*
Iraq Vet
Running for Oakland County (Michigan) Commissioner
* = Donald is also a Kossack!
Alex Cornell du Houx
Iraq Vet
Running for Maine State House
Glenn Ray
Iraq Vet
Running for Arizona State House
Allan Branstiter
Iraq Vet
Running for North Dakota State Senate
Elected Officials
Harold Naughton
Iraq Vet
Running for re-election to the Massachusetts State House
Joe Rice
Iraq Vet
Running for re-election to the Colorado State House
Allen Vaught
Iraq Vet
Running for re-election to the Texas State House
McKinley Bailey
Iraq and Afghanistan Vet
Running for re-election to the Iowa State House
Steven Fulop
Iraq Vet
Jersey City, New Jersey City Councilman
Steve Hobbs
Iraq Vet
Washington State Senator
So here’s what you can do to help:
- Find an Emerging Leader near you and help them out--whether it’s financially or through volunteering. (You can donate to each of them through their respective websites, or you can donate to the group through our Emerging Leaders ActBlue page.)
- Let us know if you’re aware of any other elected officials or first-time candidates for state and local office who’ve served in Iraq or Afghanistan who could use our help. Email brandon (at) votevets (dot) org.
- Spread the word!
With a small investment of time or money now, you could be literally be helping to jumpstart the career of a future Congressperson or Senator.
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Also available at VetVoice