Today's veterans seldom win White House battle

America loves nominating war veterans for president.

George Washington? Father of Our Country.

Theodore Roosevelt? Bully for San Juan Hill!

Dwight Eisenhower? We Like Ike.

Unfortunately for Sen. John McCain, we stopped electing war veterans as president about a generation ago.

In eight of the past nine presidential elections, Americans voted for the candidate whose wartime experience was either demonstrably weaker than or a toss-up to his opponent's military record. Starting with President Nixon's 1972 re-election over South Dakota Sen. George McGovern, the candidate with the stronger military record has typically won the nomination battle but lost the general-election war.

Ask Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who challenged President Bush's re-election in 2004. The president's Vietnam-era Air National Guard record is one of missing files and unanswered questions. Kerry's Navy combat record appeared above reproach - until he won the Democratic nomination. The words "Swift Boat" entered the political lexicon for some as a symbol of the power of images to prevail over the truth in a presidential campaign.

You couldn't blame Kerry for being bitter if he had been the first war veteran to lose a presidential election. But he wasn't the first, and he isn't likely to be the last.

Nixon didn't need to make any apologies for his wartime record. Although he played down his World War II Navy service in the Pacific - it honed his poker-playing skills, he said - he was running for re-election against McGovern. The Democratic senator flew three dozen bomber missions over Europe and won the Distinguished Flying Cross for landing a damaged aircraft. Despite that stellar military resume, guess who found himself painted as the candidate of acid, abortion and amnesty (for Vietnam-era deserters and draft dodgers)?

Nixon won re-election in a 1972 landslide.

When Jimmy Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946, he planned on a career in the service. After his father died, though, he resigned his commission to run his family's Georgia farm and wound up as governor. The obscure Democrat then managed to unseat an incumbent president, Gerald Ford, who saw combat in World War II while serving aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. A comparison of military records never even remotely entered this one, though. Given the stain of the Watergate scandal on the Republican Party, the election wasn't destined to be much of a contest.

Carter was handily defeated for re-election in 1980 by former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. In a move that still must make the Democrat twitch and grind his teeth in his sleep, Reagan promised to rebuild America's military, even though his own service in the Army Air Force was mostly limited to training films and morale-boosting in Hollywood during World War II.

Carter's vice president, Walter Mondale, tried to thwart Reagan's re-election in 1984. Mondale joined the Army during the Korean War and spent two uneventful years guarding Fort Knox, Ky. Reagan won again in a landslide.

A war hero prevailed in 1988. George H.W. Bush, the former oilman, diplomat and spy chief, fought "the wimp factor" with his record of having been shot down over the Pacific by Japanese fighters during World War II. His opponent, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, had a quiet Army tour of duty in Korea.

The previous pattern resumed in 1992, when Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton challenged Bush for re-election. Not only did Clinton have no military record, there were photos of him as a fashion-challenged, bearded representative of the 1960s counterculture, and documents that led some to question his commitment to military service. Clinton still won decisively.

Everything military veterans hated about Clinton returned with a vengeance in 1996, when he was challenged by Bob Dole. No one bothered to question the Kansas Republican senator's heroism: Dole was crippled and nearly killed during a World War II battle in Italy. Still, Clinton won handily.

Cynics argue that one of the reasons Al Gore joined the Army and went to Vietnam was to blunt attacks on his father, Tennessee Sen. Al Gore Sr., a critic of the war. Cynics argue that one of the reasons George W. Bush joined the Air National Guard and went to Alabama was to avoid actually going to Vietnam.

The primary battlefields are even more littered with military medals. For every Eisenhower, there's a Gen. Douglas MacArthur, whose future once appeared limitless. He told Congress that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away" - and history decided his political career should take that route.

If this election is like the others of the current generation when it comes to military service, it's a fate that could befall McCain too.

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Associated Press writers Frank Bass covered presidential politics in the 1980s, Rita Beamish in the 1980s and 1990s.