OLUMBIA, S.C. - The escalating hostilities between Governor George W. Bush and Senator John McCain - displayed in a nasty exchange of television commercials raising questions of trust this week - have also spread to a constituency once considered McCain's domain: the 375,000 veterans who live in South Carolina.
The first shots were fired by Bush at a rally in Sumter, S.C., a week ago, when a group of retired generals and Medal of Honor winners endorsed the Texas governor. At the event, another prominent veteran, J. Thomas Burch Jr., chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Committee, complained that McCain ''had the power to help the veterans. He came home, forgot us.''
The McCain campaign responded this week by calling Burch ''a discredited trial lawyer'' and demanded an apology, which has not been forthcoming.
While a handful of veterans have begun setting up picket lines at Bush events to protest the attack on McCain's record, Bush's communications director in South Carolina, Tucker Eskew, said the Texas governor would continue to carry out raids on ''McCain's turf.''
Using McCain's senate title - a Bush campaign device to link their rival to Washington - Eskew said, ''We will concede nothing to Chairman McCain in getting the veterans' vote.'' Eskew also minimized the role that McCain's corps of veterans will play, speculating that no more than 10 percent of South Carolina's veterans would vote in the Feb. 19 primary.
Although South Carolina holds a reputation for having the largest number of veterans per capita in the country, federal data don't support that claim. At least 25 states have a higher percentage of veterans in their voting-age population.
Nevertheless, South Carolina has a strong military tradition and McCain drew heavily upon his background as he began building his campaign organization in South Carolina a year ago. Veterans seemed a natural base for the Arizona senator. As he describes himself in his best-selling autobiography, ''Faith Of My Fathers,'' McCain is a third-generation Navy officer, a combat pilot who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Bush's effort to undercut McCain's following among the veterans flared after McCain's decisive victory in last week's New Hampshire primary.
At first, McCain dismissed the Bush offensive by citing the endorsements he has received from veterans groups. But after the issue simmered for a few days, McCain's campaign issued a broadside aimed at Bush and his advocate, Burch.
In a news release, a South Carolina Medal of Honor winner, Michael Thornton, said, ''Governor Bush invited Mr. Burch onto his stage, stood silently by while this unscrupulous man lied about John McCain's record and thus smeared a man I consider a hero.''
Burch was faulted for admitting in a television interview after the Sumter event that he could not back up his charges that McCain opposed health benefits for soldiers harmed by Agent Orange or Gulf War veterans.
Asked about Burch's remarks, Bush's spokesman Eskew said, ''Those were his words, not ours.''
But the Bush campaign showed no sign of backing away from the controversy. ''The McCain campaign is squawking because we hit them where they hurt,'' Eskew said. ''McCain and the media created a myth of the military monolith, and we exploded that. We challenged him on his greatest point of pride, and they stomped their feet, pointed fingers, and whined.''
