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Jon Soltz

Jon Soltz is the co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org and a veteran of the Iraq War. As a political action committee, VoteVets.org works to elect Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to public office. The organization and Soltz have been critical of the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War.

Sara Fritz interviewed Soltz on September 26, 2007.

Tell me a little about yourself and your military service and what brought you to this point with VoteVets.

My military service is simple. I was commissioned in ’99 from the University of Pittsburgh, an armor officer and tanks; went to Kosovo in 2000; ran villages in Kosovo; came back to Germany after that; was branch detailed in the transportation corps; did truck ops in Iraq in 2003. I think the debate in 2003 was different than it is today. And my position on the war has never really moved from when I came home.

Did it change while you were there?

It changed when I got back. You can’t process a war when you are fighting it. It’s very hard to do that. I mean you are not thinking about if the guy to your right or to your left is a Republican or a Democrat. These aren’t relevant issues when you are in the battlefield. How about like, “should we get some Kool-Aid mix for that water?” But I was for the war when I went. But see, I don’t ever forget why I went. If you are a soldier, you never forget why you went. You went because there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and you went because it was an imminent threat to America on the heels of 9/11.

When I returned home and I went to graduate school, the debate in America was focused around, “are we going to fight people over there so we don’t have to fight them here at home,” and weapons of mass destruction. And we have a moral [obligation] to do that. Or was it an immoral thing to engage in a war where civilians got killed? So my feeling coming back in 2003 was that this was a moral war. And that morality is not why you fight war.

Wait, I may have misunderstood you. You came back in 2003 thinking this was a moral [war]?

Moral. Absolutely. The only thing I could take out of it was that this was a moral war, that there were a lot of Iraqis who did not like Saddam Hussein. It was evident when we were on the ground. But wars aren’t fought on the name of morality if they assure your ability to project force throughout the world. And that the critical issues in the Iraq War, as we forge ahead in it in the years to come — because it was clear to me that the war wouldn’t end.

Like I said, the right was talking about how this had to be done. Where are the weapons of mass destruction? The UN was wrong, and the left was arguing this war from a moral standpoint. That was a fatally flawed argument from the beginning. The strongest arguments never to go to Iraq were security-based arguments, which were that the Army could not sustain a protracted war with no end date and a volunteer force. It never happened before in the history of our country. And that’s what we had been set up for.

The president who had opposed these liberal, nation-building type missions has now walked into it, but walked into it in a way that was unprecedented in our history. So the reason you can sort of make arguments for Kosovo and Bosnia isn’t the fact that they are in Europe. It’s the fact that they didn’t require a large amount of American force structure.

In Iraq, you have 20 combat brigades at a time. In Kosovo, you had one for six months. In Iraq, you have 20 for 15 [months]. So you have a destruction of America’s ability to project force. You have 26 million Iraqis and 160,000 troops. Putting 20,000 more in there is like spinning into the ocean, in a sense. In Kosovo, when you have 40,000 troops for 200,000 to protect, only protecting Serbs, you have one troop for every five civilians. Of those 40,000 troops, only 6,000 were Americans. So you had a much better ability for us to sort of blanket the country. And even though we blanketed the country and we had overwhelming force available to us and capacity, we had not destroyed our nation’s ability to project force in the world.

But the greatest argument with the Iraq War was just that this was an utter strategic distraction for our nation. Those were the arguments that need to be made, not that this war was immoral. Those morality arguments are fatally flawed, and they will continue to be fatally flawed for progressives, if they choose to use them, because essentially Iraq could become a tremendous humanitarian disaster on a scale of Somalia and Sudan if it’s not done correctly. I’m not even sure what correct is. I think the danger for conservatives, actually, is that [Osama] bin Laden is seen as more powerful than he was six years ago. And I think the danger for liberals in this debate could be utter civil chaos in Iraq.

So your position is?

Our position is that the Iraq War is a distraction. We are not an anti-war organization. What we are is a pro-military organization. And the military’s been decimated on a war that has not made America safer.

Do you have a proposal for what needs to be done? Or is it more just about pointing out the flaws in what is going on?

Well, we need a strategic refocus. I mean that’s it. It’s about reallocation of national power: economic, political, diplomatic, and military to al-Qaida. And to do that, first, you have to find a way out of Iraq. You are not going to be able to use military force to do that. We have dug ourselves in, basically, a hole for a long, long war that we are going to have to fight for many years.

Tell me the story of the creation of VoteVets. How did it get started? How did you get involved in it?

It’s such a long story. Did you see the L.A. Times piece?

I have not seen the L.A. Times piece.

Basically, when I was in graduate school I wrote this paper that outlines sort of my opinion.

Where did you go?

University of Pittsburgh. I never finished. I actually got called back up into the Army.

I see. So you went back?

Well, I didn’t go back to Iraq. I went to Fort Dix to train soldiers. But I wrote this paper. And then John Kerry people wanted me to meet John Kerry. I thought it was a joke. It was the height of the presidential race in April 2004. I met John Kerry on a tarmac in Pittsburgh. And I gave him my two cents. I mean I was angry. I told him what I thought. And he called me on the phone the next day and wanted me to get involved.

At the same time, I had just gone up to the VA [Veterans Affairs]. They were closing the Highland Drive Veterans Hospital in Pittsburgh, so I went to the press conference in Pittsburgh at the Oakland [VA] facility. I wanted to go to the press conference because [Republican Senator] Arlen Specter was going to be there. The head of the Oakland public affairs was a guy named Dave Cowgill. I won’t forget his name.

He said, “Well, what are you doing here?” I said, “I am here to go to the press conference.” He said, “The press conference is for press only.” And I said, “But I just got back from Iraq, and I wanted to go to a press conference to find out why they are closing the VA hospital and to see the senator.” He looked at me and said, “You can leave here two ways; you can walk out of here, or these guys can kick you out of here.” I was like, that’s really screwed up.

I went across the street and I had a little press conference with — I’ll never forget the reporter’s name — Meghan Jones. I said to her, “I don’t know how I am good enough to go to war in Iraq and not be good enough to go to a press conference on why they are closing a veteran’s hospital in Pittsburgh when we come home.” Then I started being an activist. And John Kerry called me up. He asked me to volunteer, so I worked for free on the campaign for six months.

Where did you work?

I was a veteran’s coordinator in Pennsylvania. Then I got called back up. I disappeared for a year; I went to Fort Dix for a year. Then from there I went to New York. Originally, VoteVets was just raising money for Iraq and Afghanistan vets in the last cycle. What I really wanted to do was go after incumbents who have been bad to the troops. I started with the body armor ad against [former Virginia Republican Senator] George Allen, because he was running a race with [Democratic Senator] Jim Webb, where Jim Webb was the underdog. Jim Webb represented exactly what VoteVets is, which is a Republican [who had] become a Democrat, whose son was in Iraq, who served in Vietnam, running against a Vietnam-era draft-dodger like George Allen who claims to be the overture of patriotism, who has never served in the military, who voted against body armor.

On the heels of the “macaca” [video], we launched that body armor ad. I put the ad on my credit card; we got $30,000 to put it on the air. And it just went kaboom. The next thing I knew, there was $200,000 in our accounts from online donations. That was really sort of what launched the whole VoteVets holding politicians accountable-brand, and we have been running ads ever since.

What was the name of your organization at that point? Or did you have an organization at that time?

Yeah, VoteVets.org. When I ran that body armor ad, it was VoteVets.

But you did inherit another organization, did you not? There was the Iraq and the Afghanistan . . .

The PAC.

Yeah.

No, I was in charge of that. I ran a PAC. The original name of VoteVets was Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America PAC. We changed that name, because it was attached to a (c)(3). Legally, the PAC and the (c)(3), it’s very complicated for the two of them to be attached. So we separated it, because I was legally in charge of the board of the PAC and everything to VoteVets.org. It was too sticky to be connected to a (c)(3). Besides, we wanted to do some targeted stuff with it.

So it was really the body armor ad that got you into business?

That really is what launched the organization more than anything else that we have done that people remember. There is no question about that.

Who did your ad at that point? Did you do your own ad?

Well, that ad was scripted by Bill Hillsman.

But you put it on your credit card?

Well yeah, the production costs. The body armor I bought on eBay on my credit card. So yeah, I was burning a lot of my own money last year. There is no question about it.

Where did the money start coming from after that ad? Who were your donors?

Well, the PAC, those are filed on the Internet, but that’s all small donors. The large donors are 500 people [who] invest in the organization. So it’s just a (c)(4). It’s a (c)(4) and PAC. So you just go around, and you get donors.

I see your board listed here. Are they contributors? Have they helped?

Yeah, they contribute in different ways. Some give advice. Some give money. It all depends on who they are.

And would you say most of your 501(c)(4) contributions are small or large?

Both. It depends on what we are raising for, and when we are raising to send vets to D.C. Like last week we brought 45 or 50 vets to D.C. We did two e-mails and raised about $37,000 to send these guys to D.C. That came from the Internet from small donations.

Who are your biggest contributors?

Well, I can’t disclose our private donors. I mean they don’t wish to be disclosed.

Well, you have to put them up eventually, don’t you?

No. Not if they have asked not to be. I would look at our board and you can see from there who some of our supporters are. I mean those are our public supporters. But no, I don’t have to ever put up our (c)(4) donors, only PAC donors.

And you did, originally, have a 527?

No, never. That’s a PAC nonfederal account. That’s a different account. That’s not a 527 account at all.

You have two contributions in there, one from Brian Snyder and another from Kevin Toner.

Yeah, but that’s not a 527. That’s a PAC nonfederal account. We do not have a 527, because we have a PAC. We do not have a 527. That’s a nonfederal account. That’s what we use to support state candidates. So like we helped eight or nine Iraq vets that were statewide last year or state candidates, and we did $500 here, $500 there. It’s one of our missions to give money to Iraq vets that want to run for office.

Are you getting any assistance from the Democracy Alliance? It looks like some of the names of your contributors are Democracy Alliance people.

Well, we have received some support from Democracy Alliance this year, but only through a special funding clause. Now a lot of donors that give to Democracy Alliance can also give to us. But it’s not through the Democracy Alliance.

They actually don’t give money through that organization, but they write separate checks.

Yeah, so we were able to get some funding through the Democracy Alliance this year. Not a tremendous amount, but an amount that we are grateful of, there is no question about that. But we are not a Democracy Alliance organization that can regularly receive money from them.

And do you have connections with MoveOn?

We, like any other organization on the progressive side, talk to MoveOn. But that’s our relationship with them; we are working this coalition with them. But look, I work very hard on the fundraising. And certainly the VoteVets have to do for ourselves.

You are operating as a membership organization, are you not?

No. I mean we have members. We have 50,000 people on our website who have signed up. But you don’t have to pay to be a member.

That’s not a dues structure.

No, there is [no] dues structure.

So your funding is separate. And do you just raise money on the Internet? Or do you do direct mail?

We raise money on the Internet. We raise money through private donations.

Strictly?

That’s how we do it right now.

Do you have a big advertising consultant? Or are you still doing it on the cheap?

I actually use different consultants. It’s all about the product. What’s more important than the consultant is you have to have a message that you want to sell. What are you trying to say politically? Once we have that concept, then we breach the idea of how to do business.

Your message seems to be basically using retired servicemen talking about what they see going on there. Is that your characterization?

Yeah, our message is to bring voices from the conflicts into the debate. That’s what we try to do.

Tell me what you have in mind for the 2008 cycle.

That’s really simple. We want to play in the presidential. We want to hold accountable the nominee who is not going to be strong on the military. That looks like it’s going to be the Republican nominee. We want to play offense on the war on terror, not defense. We want to take the fight to al-Qaida and the enemy, and guys like Rudy Giuliani aren’t going to provide the opportunity to do that. They are going to be obsessed with Iraq and obsessed with George [W.] Bush. So we plan to be the organization to refocus this debate to defeating al-Qaida.

Do you consider yourself a Democratic organization?

No. Not at all. We are a pro-military organization. It so happens that the Republicans ended up on the wrong side of this debate. I mean [Republican Senator] Chuck Hagel hasn’t, that’s for sure.

He hasn’t?

No. He is on the right side.

But unfortunately for you, he is leaving. I assume you are disappointed by that.

I am terribly disappointed by it. Hagel was fighting for the life of his own party.

So you intend to just keep up a pretty much steady flow of ads. Are you going to work both in the congressional and the presidential, or just in the presidential?

We are going to work everywhere we can make a difference. We also have vets in key states and key media markets to roll out as well. So that’s the other important piece.

So you’ll have . . .

Vets on the ground everywhere.

Have you evolved into an organization with a significant staff?

Yeah, we have eight people now full time.

How do you do all of this with eight people?

Well, everybody works hard every day. That’s why I got sick [recently, with the flu]. But that’s a lot more from where we were last year.

I assume when you got involved with Kerry, you were responding, perhaps, to the Swift Boat thing.

No. No. No. I was in before that. I got in April ’04. Now I work a lot with General [Wesley] Clark. He is head of our board. So he is influential. If there is one organization we work closest with, it’s WesPAC. It’s General Clark’s PAC.

And he still has that.

Yeah.

I noticed you got some money from [Barack] Obama’s PAC at the very beginning.

You do your research.

Do you prefer Obama?

Oh, I am staying out of the presidential primaries. I am not going to get involved in the presidential primaries.

For you, it’s just a matter of who is going to be nominated and who is not.

That’s right. But I think Obama is a great guy and would make a fine candidate. I will say the same about Senator [Hillary] Clinton. Barack Obama did give us $5,000. Bill Clinton hosted a fundraiser for us.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so when you take from both sides of the tree, it’s hard to . . .

Tell me about the Clinton fundraiser. That must have been kind of fun.

Yeah. I mean, he is the president.

Where was it?

It was in Manhattan.

They say he is a good draw.

Oh, he is a tremendous draw. If you have Bill Clinton, everybody wants to come.

Do you know how much he made?

Well actually, we did it right before the election. It was on Halloween last year. So it was more of an introduction to some of the most well-known donors. We used it as a way to get introduced to people we never had access to.

That explains why you have all of those names on that.

Yeah. Actually, the guy who introduced me to Bill Clinton was Brian Snyder. You brought his name up, so I have to give him credit.

And do you still have two offices, Broadway and Park Avenue?

The office now is on Broadway. But actually, we are going to get a P.O. Box, because we have people who work all over the country from different places. And that’s our preferred model.

But you work on Broadway. I thought Park Avenue was kind of a fancy address for . . .

That’s why we moved out of it. Because it was a rental place where you just plug in for a couple of months, just sign for a couple of months. Then we moved down to a more permanent place.

Well, you have become a celebrity through this, have you not?

I don’t know about that. I don’t know. Some people say that. But it’s not like I walk down the street and people know who I am. If I go to political events, then it gets tough to get through the room. But it’s not about that.

But how has that affected you?

It hasn’t really, because I don’t have a perspective for it. It doesn’t change the fact that the war is still raging. It doesn’t change the fact that bin Laden is on the loose. It hasn’t changed the core of why I am doing what I am doing.

Somewhere I saw you identified as a regular contributor to MSNBC.

Yeah. I do like Countdown [w/ Keith Olbermann] all the time and Hardball [with Chris Matthews].

Does that mean you are on the payroll?

No. No. No. I don’t get paid.

They just call on you a lot?

Yeah., I just go on there a good bit. I was on Countdown last Friday night.

You like that? Is it fun?

Oh, yeah. Olbermann is great. 

A lot of people have fun being a celebrity and being recognized.

Oh, I don’t know. It’s not about that. It’s like I was drafted into this. Well, here is the thing. I should say this. When you are a little boy, and you’re eight and nine years old, you go out and play cowboys and Indians. You play war and army. You go out there and you win the battle. Right? That’s what you’re playing to do. You don’t play “let me dissent from my government.” There is no glory in what we do. There is no desire to be who we are or what I do. When you are a little kid, you don’t dream about how you can question the way your government’s waging a war. I think there is a big misconception that people have.

So in a sense, it’s a kind of sad development, in your view.

Sure. I didn’t say I wanted to be this person when I was kid.

Do you have a political family?

No, not at all. No. My parents were never involved in politics. I mean they have opinions on it, but they were never actively involved like in politics. My dad was a federal employee.

It looks like you have created an organization which is likely to be around for a while, if you want it to be.

Well, we hope so.

Is that your plan?

Well, we want to create an organization that represents a different side of how troops feel, which I felt was absent when I got home. This isn’t an anti-war organization. It’s just people feel that the mission is off-course drastically.

Do you find people that people do mistake you for an anti-war organization sometimes?

Maybe if they don’t look into the issue. But I think most people understand that we don’t go to anti-war rallies or pro-war rallies. I mean that’s not really who we are. We don’t advocate like people having the flag upside-down. That is disgraceful to our flag.

Now your newest competitor is Freedom’s Watch.

Freedom’s Watch isn’t a veteran’s organization, so they are not a competitor. They are a White House organization. For $60 million.

But you must have some good intelligence about what they are up to?

Yeah, they are running ads in key districts, telling the key Republicans that we hammer not to break. They are a White House front group, and we are not. So that’s the major point.

Do you know who their major contributors are?

Eric Smeltzer has that information. You should e-mail him for that, because he’s got it. I mean Ari Fleischer is the big guy behind that.

Well, what do you think about their ads?

I think they were created to match our ads, which are bringing voices of vets with the truth to the front of the debate. I think they are correct in that analysis that those people can speak more genuinely to America than anyone else. But unfortunately for them, they are a puppet organization.

When Ari Fleischer was on Hardball, he didn’t know the names of the soldiers in the ad. Besides, what kind of credibility does Ari Fleischer have? He has spun me once. He has spun me twice. And he’s not going to spin me again. Ari Fleischer is a fraud in this debate. He has been politicized. He is arrogantly wrong. We trusted him. He misled us. He has no more credibility. The American public is sick of him. They want him to go away.

you expect any other veteran organizations to come into this ad-buying business?

I actually think it’s pretty stable right now. I mean among VoteVets and Freedom’s Watch and Vets for Freedom, I think it’s going to be pretty neutral.