A Tea Party Test Case

A headstrong conservative faces an Iraq-war heroine in a pivotal House race

By Joe Klein Monday, Oct. 15, 2012
    • Illustration by Oliver Munday for TIME

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    Duckworth is charismatic and appealing too. "I love sexy airplanes," she told a group of students at a local community college. "But we shouldn't be funding the F-35 [fighter jet]. We're not going to be getting into dogfights with the Chinese anytime soon, and we can kick their butts with our superior pilots and our F-18s and F-22s."

    "The only thing she talks about is her military service," Walsh told me, and there is some truth to that, even though Duckworth has a full roster of moderate-liberal policy positions she can defend fluently. But the military--not so much her injuries as the culture--clearly has been the defining experience of her life. She signed up for ROTC in graduate school and "fell in love" with military life in boot camp. This is something I hear frequently from service members: the physical pain and psychological suffering inflicted by drill instructors create a bond, a band of brothers (and now sisters) far more satisfying than the anomie of civilian life.

    In that way, the military stands at the opposite end of the social spectrum from the libertarian individualism of the Tea Party. It is all about banding together for the greater good. There's a can-do, complete-the-mission and leave-no-comrade-behind ethos. "I'd love to see some Republican veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan get elected this year," Duckworth told me. "I'm sure we could work together and get things done. We've been trained for that."

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