Is a military background still of advantage?

[solarstorm]

Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton and Seth Moulton and Tammy Duckworth each competed in a hotly contested congressional election. And each of them won their contest.
Is a military background still such a benefit?
Would they all also have won if they had never joined the services?

[dead0man]

If their service was honorable, of course it's a benefit.  It's not a benefit to every voter, but certainly with enough voters to make a difference in a close election.

Even more so if they did something heroic like JFK or Bush the Greater.  Or was a good manager of war/men like Grant or Ike.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

In an election where 80% of the electorate was middle-aged or senior whites?  Of course.

[Mr. Smith]

Max Cleland disagrees with this

[King]

Nope. People who care about military background would vote for a limp-wristed effeminate Republican who made his money in women's perfume over a Democrat Purple Heart winner 10 times out of 10, calling the latter a coward all the way.

[Cory]

Nope. People who care about military background would vote for a limp-wristed effeminate Republican who made his money in women's perfume over a Democrat Purple Heart winner 10 times out of 10, calling the latter a coward all the way.

[IceSpear]

Nope. People who care about military background would vote for a limp-wristed effeminate Republican who made his money in women's perfume over a Democrat Purple Heart winner 10 times out of 10, calling the latter a coward all the way.

[angus]

yes, or at least it is with me.  Those who have sent men to their deaths, or who have crawled though sh**t dodging bullets are less likely to take authorizations of militarily lightly than the armchair warriors we have in power just now.  If Bush had served in Viet Nam, instead of spending that period drunk and high on cocaine, absent without leave from a cushy reserve position, he might not have been so quick to ask the congress for an invasion of Iraq, and if the members of congress had served, they might not have been so quick to grant it.  In fact, you'll recall that it was Powell, among all his deputies, that hesitated the most and most seriously sought proof of weapons labs before committing.
 

[solarstorm]

Nope. People who care about military background would vote for a limp-wristed effeminate Republican who made his money in women's perfume over a Democrat Purple Heart winner 10 times out of 10, calling the latter a coward all the way.

I am apparently the only one not to understand that joke ...

Is it something about Tisei, Schock or DeMaio?