Free Republic

CLEVELAND - President Bush (news - web sites) is getting support from unlikely people in battleground states: some steelworkers who are grateful for temporary tariffs that helped the struggling steel industry begin rebounding. While experts say steel unions as a whole will support Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites), some pockets of workers liked how Bush handled the tariffs — a key campaign issue in such states as Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The 201 tariffs were imposed in March 2002 to shield struggling U.S. steel producers from foreign competition. The tariffs were supposed to be in place for...

PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - President Bush picked up $850,000 in campaign contributions in the heart of America's steel industry on Tuesday even as he prepared to lift tariffs that have been helping the steelmakers. Supporters of the tariffs lodged a last-ditch effort to keep the protections in place. Bush heard arguments from Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter and U.S. Steel Corp. Chairman Tom Usher, a sponsor of the campaign fund-raiser which the Bush re-election campaign said had been planned long before the steel decision became imminent. Scores of steelworkers demonstrated near the Pittsburgh site of Bush's event. Administration officials said they...

<p>When they aren't being turned into makeshift pig roasters or Caribbean musical instruments, steel drums play equally important roles in the industrial part of the U.S. economy. Every kind of fluid, from lubricants to yucky food additives, gets shipped in them.</p>

Boston Globe: "Romney is a right-wing conservative Republican who tried to destroy Ted Kennedy eight years ago," said Philip W. Johnston, the state Democratic chairman. "Nobody's engaged him yet on issues. We will remind people where he stands." Romney is to be defaced currently for two reasons, his right-wing conservative affiliation and his attempt "to destroy Ted Kennedy eight years ago". How do those two items figure in your voting decision? What are we to expect in future campaigns? Where/what are the issues to be? Will the Rats evade politics altogether and simply concentrate on personal attacks? Will personal attacks...