WASHINGTON (AP) – Three months after a veterans’ health care scandal rocked his administration, President Barack Obama is addressing the American Legion National Convention in an appearance that is also fraught with midterm politics.
The president’s speech to the Legion convention Tuesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, aims to draw attention to administration initiatives to care for veterans once they come home.
For Obama, the visit to North Carolina has a heavy political subtext. The state’s Democratic senator, Kay Hagan, is in a difficult re-election race and Obama is not popular in the state. Hagan was scheduled to speak to the American Legion too, but her spokeswoman declined to say whether she would appear on stage with the president.
The campaign of Hagan’s Republican opponent, Thom Tillis, accused Hagan of being a “rubber stamp” for Obama and “compliant with the administration’s failure to provide our veterans with the health care that they deserve.”
Obama could also face a skeptical audience. In a July Associated Press-GfK poll, his approval rating among veterans and veterans’ households lagged behind his overall approval rating at just 33 percent, with 66 percent disapproving.