The Iraq war looms over another race, as the group that helped defeat John Kerry targets the antiwar lawmaker.
LAT
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Two years after a cadre of veterans helped sink the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), they have found a new target in the old steel country of southwestern Pennsylvania: Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha.
In a fight that organizers say will feature rallies, TV ads and an aggressive Internet campaign, these activists are promising to make Murtha pay for his criticism of the Iraq war.
"I will do my best to 'Swift boat' John Murtha," retired Navy Capt. Larry Bailey said at a recent news conference here, invoking the 2004 campaign against Kerry that took its name from Vietnam War-era Navy vessels....
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A decorated Marine wounded in action, Murtha became the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress. He backed the first Persian Gulf War and has been a longtime champion of robust defense spending....Murtha, 74, established a new persona on Nov. 17, when he called a news conference to declare that, in his view, U.S. troops had become "the primary target of the insurgency" in Iraq and that it was "time to bring them home."...
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Murtha may reflect the feelings of a large portion of his constituents, said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the polling institute at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut....Opposition to the war "emerged earlier (in the region) than it did in other parts of the country," Richards said....
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