NEW YORK — Jon Soltz rapped his pen on a conference table as he ran through plans to take on politicians who back the war in Iraq.
The former Army captain and Iraq war veteran demanded television ads. "I want a hit on Fox," he barked into a speakerphone.
He wanted more e-mail blasts and more donors. "Do we have a target list?" he asked of the team gathered for a Monday morning conference call. "Let's go get those dollars."
He seethed when the phone went dead during a discussion of an upcoming fundraiser. He raged about a war protest scheduled for Memorial Day: "It's offensive. I can't defend that."
There isn't much to the nerve center of his operation: three rooms lit by bare fluorescent lights on the seventh floor of a dingy Manhattan office building.
But in a little more than a year since he launched VoteVets.org, Soltz has helped transform the war debate in Washington by channeling the raw anger and frustration of many Iraq vets into a political campaign both sophisticated and visceral. Soltz, 30, and his band of mostly twenty- and thirtysomething veterans have shaken the GOP's claim to be the pro-military party. They accuse Republicans of recklessly sending troops to war without the right equipment and failing to care for thousands of wounded and traumatized vets.
During the 2006 election, VoteVets' stark attack ads featuring disillusioned veterans helped unseat Republicans in five states, including Sen. George Allen of Virginia and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, whose defeats gave Democrats an unexpected Senate majority.
This year, Soltz and VoteVets have been a constant presence on Capitol Hill, where they have emboldened Democrats to push for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
Soltz works closely with liberal groups such as MoveOn.org as well as influential military officers like retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark. He has become something of a celebrity, sought out by the media, consulted by senior Democratic lawmakers and mobbed by antiwar activists.
At the recent Take Back America conference in Washington, Soltz basked in a standing ovation from a packed room of liberal convention-goers. Many jostled to get their pictures taken with him.
He is a regular on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," where he tangles with supporters of the war.
