Veterans to tout Obama's record as military leader
As the war in Iraq draws to a close, U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has quietly enlisted an army of veterans to urge other military men and women to vote for him in November.
The Obama campaign has built a network of more than 700 supportive veterans to promote the president in key states such as Virginia and North Carolina, where 13 percent and 11 percent of residents are veterans, respectively.
These states are among a dozen divided battleground states that could hold the keys to victory in the 2012 election.
The move is a sign that the Obama campaign will aggressively tout the commander-in-chief's record as a military leader while it tries to assure Americans that the president can lift the struggling U.S. economy.
The strategy contrasts with Obama's approach as a presidential hopeful in 2008, when he focused largely on the economy and had to deflect criticism that he was naive and inexperienced in military matters.
As president, however, Obama has presided over military and intelligence operations that have killed dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
