Kerry rolls out campaign for the veterans' vote

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Democrat John Kerry formally rolls out his campaign for the traditionally conservative-leaning veterans' vote on Friday, but President Bush's re-election team says their rival's

Friday, June 4th 2004, 5:58 am

By: News On 6

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) _ Democrat John Kerry formally rolls out his campaign for the traditionally conservative-leaning veterans' vote on Friday, but President Bush's re-election team says their rival's Vietnam War experience won't be enough to win the votes of others who have served their country.

Kerry was to announce volunteer veterans coordinators in all 50 states who will try to recruit current and former soldiers to his campaign. The goal is to sign up 1 million veterans to help get out the vote for Kerry in what they say would be an unprecedented veterans organization in a presidential campaign.

John Hurley, the national director of Veterans for Kerry, says veterans will be motivated to vote for Kerry because of his war experience and their anger at diminished services from the Veterans Administration and Bush's handling of Iraq.

``I think veterans are really uneasy, particularly Vietnam vets have a haunting sense of deja vu,'' Hurley, who was an Army lieutenant in Vietnam, said in an interview aboard Kerry's campaign plane. ``John Kerry is going to get the veteran vote. Even if it has been Republican in the past, we are going to carry it.''

Hurley said there are 26.5 million veterans in the United States. Bush got more than half, 54 percent, of the veterans' vote in a CBS News poll released Friday while Kerry had the support of four in 10 veterans.

In a two-way matchup in the poll, conducted May 20-23, Kerry was ahead 49 percent to 41 percent.

The Bush campaign also has a band of volunteers to seek out veterans. Retired Lt. Col. Joe Repya said veterans are concerned about Kerry's votes to cut military pay, weapons systems and funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan during his nearly 20-year Senate career.

``I think most vets understand this election is not about Vietnam,'' said Repya, who served 18 years in the Army Reserves and 10 years on active duty, including tours in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm. ``This election is about who can win the war on terror.''

Repya, who has organized a Bush rally Friday at the same University of Minnesota campus where Kerry is speaking, said he and most other veterans would say Kerry served honorably despite the anti-war stance he took after returning home from Vietnam. He said veterans are more offended by the ``shameful way that Kerry demagogues older veterans by saying that Bush cut their benefits.''

The Bush administration has increased benefits, veterans' enrollment in VA health care and spending overall for that department, but also has found places in the system to save money. In one, the government barred new enrollment of higher-income veterans in the VA health care system unless their medical problems were directly related to their military service.

Kerry, although light on specifics, insists he would do better for veterans on their health care, pensions and more. For example, he has pledged to let all veterans who receive disability payments collect their full retirement pay.

Congress recently took steps toward ending the system of reducing military retirement pay by $1 for every dollar received in disability compensation, and Bush says he supports that goal. But critics argue that the plan would still penalize several hundred thousand veterans.

Regardless of who wins the Nov. 2 election, a 1998 decision to open VA health services to all veterans has left the government struggling to accommodate the demand for VA facilities.