GOP attacks on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) military record are drawing parallels to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in his 2004 bid for president, but political strategists say they’re unlikely to stick this time around, thanks to a far different media landscape and Walz’s 24 years in uniform.
The Republican smear campaign — in which questions were raised over Kerry’s military awards as a swift boat commander during the Vietnam War — are akin to those made since Vice President Harris announced Walz as her running mate for the White House.
Walz’s detractors have attempted to pick apart his time in the Army National Guard over when he retired from service, his rank in retirement and imprecise language he used several years ago to describe how he carried a weapon in war.
“In 2004 when the Swift Boat ads were aired, it’s important to remember the context,” said John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. “Political ads for a period of time — it’s no longer true because you’ve got Twitter, Truth Social, etc. — political ads drove the narrative in a lot of different ways campaigns were covered.”
Kerry — who had made his military record a big talking point at the Democratic National Convention, even starting his nomination speech by saying he was “reporting for duty” — was inundated with Republican television ads sowing doubts about whether the presidential candidate had earned his three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star during the Vietnam War.
“The Republicans filled the narrative, and then the news media carried it to a new level because Kerry wasn’t responding,” Geer said.
Walz, on the other hand, is not the presidential candidate, and the Harris campaign has hit back at any accusations of “stolen valor,” he added.
“The truth of the matter is, he served for 24 years. So I think at the end of the day, it’s probably not … going to really hurt Walz a huge amount,” he said of the GOP attacks. “It’s just not gonna have legs, I think.”
Walz himself spoke out over the attacks during a speech Tuesday to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.
“These guys are even attacking me for my record of service. And I just want to say, I’m proud to have served my country, and I always will be,” Walz said.
“I am damn proud of my service to this country,” he repeated. “And I firmly believe you should never denigrate another person’s service record. To anyone brave enough to put on that uniform for our great country, including my opponent, I just have a few simple words: Thank you for your service and sacrifice.”
Two decades ago, Kerry’s team was caught off guard by the GOP onslaught in the summer of 2004, amid the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Republicans raised questions about his Vietnam War service, with a political group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth leading the assault. The attack was the brainchild of now top Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, with the group spending millions of dollars on television ads. One even featured men who served in Vietnam doubting Kerry’s leadership.
LaCivita appears to be using the same playbook this time around, posting Aug. 7 on social platform X that the swift-boat allegations “were never disproven.”
The Kerry campaign seemed to falter from the claims, denying them to the press but failing to use television ads to push back.
“We did not understand the nature of the threat it posed in 2004. We definitely do now. We shrugged it off in 2004 because it was so stupid and obviously a lie, and that wasn’t enough,” said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way.
In contrast, the Harris campaign has swiftly and vehemently pushed back against the Walz attacks, which revolve around a 2018 clip of him speaking out against gun violence. In the clip, Walz says he wants to “make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at,” suggesting that he had been in a combat zone.
In a statement issued last week, Harris’s presidential campaign asserted Walz “misspoke” in the video.
“Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.
GOP lawmakers, led by vice presidential nominee and Marine Corps veteran Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), also seized on when Walz retired from the military to run for Congress, accusing him of leaving the Guard to avoid his unit’s deployment to Iraq. The claims do not match up with Walz’s official record, which shows he retired in May 2005 after submitting his request months earlier, well before a deployment order was given to his unit in August of that year.
Other claims lobbed at Walz include whether he misrepresented his rank. Walz has referred to himself as a retired command sergeant major — a title he did receive while still serving, but he retired one step down as a master sergeant. The change was due to him not having completed required coursework for the higher rank before he left the military, according to the National Guard.
The Harris campaign has sought to quell criticism on that front by updating its online biography of Walz’s military service last week, noting that he once served at the command sergeant major rank, rather than calling him a “retired command sergeant major.”
“I think what you’re seeing now is a very different kind of pushback to Vance’s insane claim that this is stolen valor. We’re just not going to sit around and take it,” Bennett told The Hill.
And Geer, who pointed to Walz’s “Norman Rockwell,” all-American persona, said Republicans seem to be scrambling to grab onto any scrap of potentially damaging fodder.
“The truth of the matter is, this is a guy who’s a teacher, football coach. I mean, he’s pretty squeaky clean, and this is about the best [they] can do,” he said.
Vance will keep the focus on military matters this week with scheduled remarks in Pennsylvania on Thursday alongside a trio of Republican veterans in Congress.
“The United States military is facing unprecedented recruiting difficulties because of the dangerously liberal Harris-Biden Administration,” the campaign said in a statement about the event.
“For the last three and a half years, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have been more focused on promoting their woke agenda in the military rather than ensuring success on the battlefield.”