http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/general-joins-obama-in-iowa/General Joins Obama in Iowa
By Cate Doty
NEVADA, Iowa – Merrill A. McPeak, a retired Air Force general who campaigned for Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, told a crowd of 300 today that Barack Obama is “what the joint chiefs want to see – somebody they can rely and depend on.”
General McPeak, a former member of the joint chiefs of staff who commanded the air war during Operation Desert Storm, appeared today with the senator on the campaign trail. He endorsed the senator with an ad titled “Gulf” that was released in October.
“Judgment is what we need in our next commander-in-chief,” the retired general said in the ad. “The old Washington hands have let us down. We need a new leader to lift America.”
Although he campaigned for President Bush in 2000, the general later said that he knew the president’s father, not George W. Bush himself, and had made a mistake in judgment. Hotly opposed to the Iraq war, General McPeak threw his support behind Howard Dean in 2004, and campaigned for Senator John Kerry after Gov. Howard Dean ended his campaign.
While stumping for Senator Kerry in 2004, General McPeak told the Mail Tribune of Medford, Ore., that “It’s not that I’m a left-wing, raving lunatic liberal Democrat. I am not. I’m just a conservative guy who doesn’t like to see somebody waste our sons and daughters or our money, and our allies, by the way.”
He is now a national co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign and is appearing across Iowa with him today.
“He’s too genuine, too authentic to be the flavor of the month,” the general said today in Nevada.
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