The Other Men of the Year

George W. Bush received the well-deserved "Person of the Year" accolade from Time Magazine, but there was another group that should at least receive honorable mention: The Swift Boat Vets. These guys came out of nowhere back in February and effectively turned the presidential race on its ear.

Shortly after Kerry had his All-Vietnam, All The Time convention in Boston, most political pundits were anticipating 6 weeks of relative quiet on the campaign trail as everyone waited for the GOP confab in New York. Things got pretty loud pretty fast when the Swift Vet ads started showing up in August, and instead of basking in the glow of his convention, Kerry found himself backpeddling while trying to ignore and belittle the Swifties. Ignoring them only turned up the heat, and by the time the Kerry campaign finally started responding, the damage was done.

The Swifties, who started out with almost no funding and one ad running in only 3 states, grew into a multi-million dollar organization as vets and others around the country jumped in with contributions and purchases of "Unfit For Command" which funded the ad campaign. Killer ad after killer ad came from the Swifties, all of which received not only local airplay in the states where advertising was purchased, but national airplay on various news channels and talk radio. They very effectively burst Kerry's Vietnam War hero balloon.

Read how it all happened here, and when you sit down to your Christmas dinner, raise a glass to the Swifties without whom the Time Person of the Year might have been President-Elect Kerry.