April 18, 2016 01:24 PM UTC

Yes It's "Pandering," And It's Really Common Too

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Over the past few days, the issue of Colorado Republican candidates for office relying heavily on their service records and using photos of themselves in uniform in campaign materials has heated up considerably. Jason Salzman took note of Republican state assembly winner and U.S. Senate candidate Darryl Glenn slamming opponent Jon Keyser for parading his Bronze Star commendation around on the campaign trail.

As 7NEWS’ Marshall Zelinger reported late Friday evening, a number of Republican candidates are treading very close to the limit of Department of Defense rules about using the uniform to campaign–and in some cases expressly violating them:

Denver7 checked the website and social media presence for military members running for federal office from Colorado. The Department of Defense requires that any photograph of a military member in uniform “must be accompanied by a prominent and clearly displayed disclaimer that neither the military information nor photographs imply endorsement by the Department of Defense or their particular Military Department.”

Congressman Mike Coffman has a photo of himself in uniform as his profile photo on his campaign’s Facebook page and on his Twitter account. The photo has no disclaimer…

Zelinger also checked Jon Keyser’s website, who added further disclaimers after Zelinger’s inquiry about why the images of Keyser in uniform aren’t “clearly” disclaimed as DoD regulations require. And another ex-military Republican candidate, admittedly a minor candidate running against Ed Perlmutter, had no disclaimers on his website whatsoever:

“My entire adult life, I’ve served in uniform, so how do I tell people about myself if I can’t use any photos in uniform?” said [George] Athanasopoulos. “No one wants to see photos of me when I was at Wheat Ridge High School.”

After being contacted by Denver7, he put a disclaimer on the photo…

Sure it’s embarrassing to break DoD rules, but what’s the real issue here? That brings us back to Darryl Glenn, and his criticism of Jon Keyser’s heavy reliance on his service record as a U.S. Seate candidate. Glenn is himself a retired United States Air Force officer. Glenn in fact retired as a lieutenant colonel, a higher rank than Keyser, after more than two decades of active and reserve military service.

Denver7 found no photographs of Glenn in uniform. [Pols emphasis]

Much as it did when opponent Robert Blaha obliquely questioned Keyser’s military credentials, Keyser’s campaign responded irately to Glenn’s criticism–but with no mention of Glenn’s own longtime military service. Glenn’s creditable rejection of military service as a campaign tool, especially given his personal qualifications to engage in such pandering if he chose to, presents straightforward questions about all the politicians who do trade on their service record.

It’s possible that someone with his own sterling military credentials like Glenn was always necessary to call out political abuse of military service with credibility. But now that he has as the winner of the GOP’s state assembly in the U.S. Senate race, it’s an issue that Republicans up and down the ticket will need to answer for.

And as you can see, that might not go over so well.