'Swift Boat' Vets Want to Reclaim Name

The term "Swift Boat" has become synonymous with nasty campaign smears. Today's New York Times has an article that basically states these Vietnam Veterans, who served on the type of boat pictured above (know as Patrol Craft Fast or Swift boats), want their good name back.

A little background from Wikipedia:

Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), is a political group (527 group) of American Swift boat veterans and former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War, formed during the 2004 presidential election campaign for the purpose of opposing John Kerry's candidacy for the presidency.

Even some of the Vets who associated with the anti-Kerry group do not like what "Swift boat" has become (to mean.)

Swiftboats.org has a disclaimer on their site claiming no “express or implied” political ties.

Source: New York Times

-Dippold

Political Online Reputation

Try This Candidate Calculator

Know where you stand on certain issues but not sure what candidate(s) share your beliefs? Yes? Then try the Candidate Calculator at VAjoe.com. All you do is choose yes, no or unsure on 23 different issues then rate each issue's importance as high, medium or low. Hit enter and voila, it's the candidate you should vote for and support.

My top match for Presidential candidate, according to this calculator, is Mike Gravel -- a 100 percent match. If I am reading the results right, at the time I completed the calculator, Gravel is the most top-matched candidate at 25 percent. Kucinich is at 12.5 percent, Clinton at 8.33 percent and so on. Hardly the results one would expect from a military site, but my guess is that the calculator just went live and not too many have had a shot at it.

Of course, no system of this kind can be completely cogent. There is no good way to take into account each candidate's varying degree of support for each issue. For example, say one candidate is for a border fence, but only wants a partial one while another candidate wants an all out barricade making the Great Wall of China look like some traffic cones.

So go give it a try for yourself. Even if you are already dead set on a candidate, it will display other candidates closely matched to your stance on the issues in case Mike Gravel is somehow eliminated.

-Dippold

Online Political Reputation