With Veterans, Jeb Bush Is Winning

Milford, N.H. — “On day one, I will ask the military for options to destroy ISIS,” says Jeb Bush. “And I will commit to you that we will do it.”

It’s an unseasonably balmy Thursday evening in this small New Hampshire town, and 175 town-hall–goers erupt in applause as Bush kicks off his stump speech with his strategy to take out the Islamic State. Against the backdrop of an American flag and snowflake-adorned Christmas tree, he is far from “low energy” tonight, recounting stories of his 6 a.m. physical training with Citadel cadets, and encouraging voters to continue interrogating the 2016 field: “Who is the candidate who will keep us safer, stronger, and freer?”

Watching from center stage is Colonel Leo Thorsness, the 83-year-old Medal of Honor winner who spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Thorsness introduced Bush as he took the stage, telling the crowd here, “If he becomes our president, our freedom will be building again.”

Bush is in good form, but Thorsness is the highlight of the evening. New Hampshirites swarm him for conversation, photographs, and handshakes.

It’s precisely what the Bush team hoped for.

Over the past few months, some of the country’s most decorated military veterans have begun headlining campaign appearances for Bush. He has made veterans affairs a significant part of his platform, and other candidates are starting to notice, with Donald Trump essentially copying his comprehensive plan to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bush’s campaign has been swift to market veterans’ support: Though Bush has been beating the drum on veterans’ issues throughout his campaign, there’s a new push from his team to showcase just how many are throwing their weight behind him. He’s received endorsements from twelve Medal of Honor recipients –15 percent of all the living winners — and 30 retired flag officers. Four months ago, he unveiled what remains the largest veterans’ coalition of the 2016 field.

Among white men, Evangelicals, and veterans (all reliable Republican voters), the latter is the only segment that Bush has essentially locked up, in part because it’s one of the few voting blocs where the Bush namesake — and the notion of dynastic politics more broadly — is serving as a benefit rather than a drawback. Before most audiences, Bush has labored to distance himself from his family’s legacy, repeatedly reminding voters that he is his “own man.” But when it comes to wooing the country’s military veterans, Bush’s strategists are hoping it could give new oxygen to his campaign.

“I have great admiration for his father and brother, so I was interested in what he had to say,” says Major General James Livingston, another Medal of Honor recipient who threw his support behind Bush earlier this year after Bush arranged a two-hour discussion with veterans on the state of the VA. But Livingston says Bush impressed him in his own right. “During that meeting, he was taking notes the whole time. He had a caring attitude.”

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“The Bush dynasty has had positive and negative connotations in this race,” Thorsness says. “But in the world we live in, experience matters, and the governor not only has his own background, but also his brother and father. When an issue comes along, what greater resource is there than two former presidents to talk about it?”

With terrorism topping the list of voters’ concerns in the 2016 race, veterans are finding value in Bush’s governing experience, an argument that hasn’t persuaded most voters amid the rise of outsiders like Donald Trump and Ben Carson. According to John Jumper, a four-star general who served as senior military assistant to Dick Cheney, veterans are seeking a more active role in the 2016 cycle for precisely this reason, in order to showcase the need for an experienced commander-in-chief in the current global landscape.

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Jumper had never campaigned for a candidate before this term. “I hadn’t planned on doing it this time either,” he says. “But there’s clearly a void where the global prestige of the United States has suffered. . . . ISIS is different from anything we’ve ever experienced. I think the governor takes the threats that we find ourselves confronting more seriously than any other candidate I’ve come in contact with.”

#share#Veterans’ more outspoken role in this cycle also stems from a sense of urgency in light of “dangerous” and “foolhardy” national-security proposals from Bush’s challengers, says Tom Ridge. According to the former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security secretary, Bush’s plan to combat ISIS — building a “global coalition,” starting with arming the Kurds in northern Iraq and engaging with Sunni tribal leaders — represents the only substantive proposal to counter the “sound bites” of front-runners. He cites Donald Trump, who has made waves for pledging to “bomb the hell out of ISIS.” “Anybody who’s been in the military knows it’s a facile, headline-grabbing notion,” Ridge says.

“You’ve got this cliché-driven wannabe, and then here’s someone like Jeb Bush who’s really thought about America’s role in the world with a strategic vision.”

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And perhaps more obviously, Bush’s appeal to veterans comes from a concerted outreach effort since the start of his campaign. Bush, who himself has never served, began meeting with veterans’ groups earlier this summer to lay out his plan to reform the VA, which includes expanding health-care choice for veterans through a competitive contract-bidding process.

There’s a sincerity to Bush’s outreach, Jumper says, that has helped him stack endorsements. ”I get the feeling he’s listening and values what we’re saying. . . . This is the buzz among retired folks.”

Thorsness says that Bush was the first and only candidate to reach out to him.

Bush’s challengers are catching on. When it comes to veterans’ issues specifically, Marco Rubio is now looking to his own family ties. He’s started to bring his older brother, Mario, a Vietnam veteran, out on the campaign trail as a tangible model of his commitment to revamping the VA. In a Des Moines town hall last week, Rubio talked about how his brother was still trying to receive dental care through the VA’s mass of red tape. “Mario is going through the same bureaucratic nightmare every other veteran in his situation has had to go through,” Rubio told the audience.

Will all the support Bush is getting from some of the country’s greatest patriots do anything to revive his flagging campaign, particularly in New Hampshire, long considered a must-win state for the Bush team? According to former state GOP chair Fergus Cullen, it could help Bush eliminate the bad taste his family has left among voters here. “George W. lost New Hampshire badly in 2000 after really blowing the state off,” Cullen says. “He skipped the first two debates here, and most of his events were heavy on business groups and Chamber of Commerce types. He avoided grassroots Republican events.”

#related#There’s an opportunity for Bush to counter the unfriendly sentiment here by reminding voters of his brother’s hawkish sensibilities. In a state where the defense industry remains a staple, and leaders such as Kelly Ayotte and John Sununu have made national security their calling cards, they stand to resonate.

But Cullen cautions that all of the support Bush has garnered can’t be overstated. “Which candidate in the field right now is anti-military? It’s a great honor to have these endorsements, but it’s not like there’s a candidate who’s anti-military, anti-veteran,” he says. “Bush still has major challenges.”

Indeed, as the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary loom closer, it will take much more than a colorful set of backers to give Bush the surge he needs. But his supporters remain hopeful. “We might not be seeing it in the polls right now,” says Thorsness, “but I’m confident that as people get more aware of what experience means, versus lack of experience, he’ll be the front-runner for the nomination again.”