Turns out my guess that Kerry’s six-point deficit among veterans represented an improvement over Gore’s performance was wrong.
The Chef at Ragout has the numbers. At least pre-speech, Kerry wasn’t doing any better among veterans (even Vietnam-era veterans) than Gore did four years ago, according to the Pew survey.
That doesn’t mean Kerry’s emphasis on his service record is a mistake: the audience for that is much wider than veterans. But it isn’t good news.
Related query: I wonder how Kerry is doing among active-duty and reserve servicemembers and their families? It wouldn’t be surprising if they were feeling mistreated, and they might be willing to give a Democrat a look, especially a Democrat wrapped in the flag.
Update: The Carpetbagger report reports progress: the CBS poll over the weekend had Kerry slightly ahead of Bush among veterans.
Veteran voters
I guess it’s inevitable, given that the Democratic National Convention sometimes had the aura of a regimental reunion, that there’d be a lot of discussion about the impact of the veteran’s vote this year. Looking at a pre-convention Pew study, Mark K…