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Fundraiser for a local tea party candidate in Cincinnati (Photo: Jason Margolis)

With operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is, of course, a country at war. But that doesn’t seem to be getting all that much attention in the weeks leading into the mid-term elections. The World’s Jason Margolis reports from Ohio. Download MP3

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MARCO WERMAN: With operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is, of course, a country at war. But that doesn’t seem to be getting all that much attention in these weeks leading into the mid-term elections. The World’s Jason Margolis reports from Ohio.

JASON MARGOLIS:  There are two primary ways for a candidate to stand out. First, being rich and buying advertisements helps. A lot. Second, being a career politician builds some name recognition. And then, there’s a third way, says Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the Washington newsletter The Rothenberg Political Report.

NATHAN GONZALEZ:  I think that being a veteran and having the military on your resume is a good way to get some initial attention. I think it makes voters listen to someone, a candidate that they might normally ignore.

MARGOLIS: Two years ago in Ohio, the Democratic Party found a golden boy, John Boccieri, a young, good-looking air force pilot.

JOHN BOCCIERI: Let me tell you how hard it was leaving three days after my only son was born to go serve on my last rotation over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MARGOLIS: That’s Boccieri speaking at a recent town hall debate in Canton.

BOCCIERI: And whether I was flying our wounded and fallen soldiers out of Baghdad, or delivering rice to people in Africa who didn’t know if they were going to be able to alive from one day to the next, our country has been blessed with a lot.

MARGOLIS: Stump speeches like this helped Boccieri get noticed and become the first Democrat to capture Ohio’s 16^th Congressional district since 1951. This election, Boccieri doesn’t play up his military service nearly as much. He didn’t mention it until an hour into the debate in Canton, and only did so briefly when someone in the audience asked about his background. There’s a simple reason Boccieri isn’t touting his service. Political scientist Paul Beck at The Ohio State University says it’s just not the issue.

PAUL BECK: Well I think obviously the economy dominates everything. And there’s tremendous unease about the economy, especially so in Ohio. Because Ohio has had much more deep-seated economic problems, and they’ve lasted much longer than has been true of the nation on the average.

MARGOLIS: The unemployment rate in Ohio has been over 10% since early 2009. It’s not that people in Ohio have totally forgotten about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, says Beck. It’s just that voters now see the wars differently.

BECK:  Their concern probably is more about the domestic consequences of the war efforts, and so casualties are something that will be important to them. But I think in this election, it’s not very important. It’s hard to differentiate between the parties actually in terms of Afghan policy.

MARGOLIS: Still, this isn’t stopping some veterans from playing up their service. This is a pump up, patriotic video from the website of the organization Combat Veterans for Congress.

LYRICS: I’ve the got the reach and the teeth of a killing machine, with the need to bleed you when the light goes green. Mess me with me, and the zone to be. From the yin and the yang…

MARGOLIS: Organizations like Combat Veterans for Congress try to tap into patriotic sentiments. So are some other groups. But they’re not focusing on America’s military battles. In Cincinnati, I attended a fundraiser for a local tea party candidate and met Chris Littleton. He’s in charge of the Cincinnati Tea Party. He says his group doesn’t take a position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CHRIS LITTLETON: We tend to stay away from foreign policy stuff just because I think this is more of a domestic movement.

MARGOLIS: Littleton does say he’d like to scale back military spending, though it’s not his top priority. He’s more focused on shrinking the federal government by trimming domestic spending. When it comes to veterans running for office, Littleton says military service doesn’t count for much with Tea Party members in Ohio.

LITTLETON: If a guy stands on the wrong principles, and he just happens to be a veteran, I mean. Now if I had two guys that were 100% dead even, every bit of their principle, everything I could sort was identical, and one guy had military service and the other guy didn’t, that’s probably a good thing, but principles first, principles first every single time.

MARGOLIS: And so, a candidate who flew planes over Iraq that probably won’t help much this election. For the World, I’m Jason Margolis, Cincinnati.

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