Posted on 02/10/2004 1:09:14 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
ROANOKE — U.S. Sen. John Kerry today blamed the administration's tax cuts for snuffing the prosperity of the 1990s and said he would end the Bush presidency the same way Bill Clinton did to the elder Bush in 1992.
"If you liked what Bill Clinton gave you in eight years, you'll love what John Kerry will give you in the first four," the front-running Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts told a crowd of about 500 outside a downtown firehouse.
At the morning rally, Kerry criticized an upbeat economic report released by the White House that concluded America's economy is getting stronger despite losing 2.2 million payroll jobs since Bush took office.
"I've got a feeling this report was prepared by the same people who brought us the intelligence on Iraq," Kerry said to laughter from the crowd.
The report by the president's Council of Economic Advisers said last year's tax cut was reviving business growth, and predicted the economy will grow by 4 percent and create 2.6 million new jobs this year.
"We're going back to where we were in the 1980s when they dug a huge deficit hole," he said. "It took Democrats in 1993 under the leadership of President Clinton to turn this country around, balance the budget, pay down the debt and create 23 million new jobs."
One day before Virginia and Tennessee hold primaries, polls show Kerry surging in both states, buoyed by weekend triumphs in Michigan, Washington and Maine. Kerry has a total 426 delegates, compared with 184 for his closest rival for the Democratic nomination, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, according to an Associated Press tally.
It takes 2,162 delegates to win the nomination.
On Monday, Kerry ignored his Democratic rivals, overlooking a Dean supporter at the Roanoke rally who held up a large paper sign that called the Massachusetts senator only "slightly better than Bush."
Instead, Kerry reminded the crowd they were not just picking a president, but "choosing a leader of the free world." As a Vietnam veteran with nearly 20 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said he was much better suited than Bush to handle America's security.
"I remember what it was like to carry an M-16 in another country thousands of miles away and to not be able to tell the difference between who was trying to kill me and who wasn't, who was my friend and who was my foe," he said. "I learned about a lot of questions a president ought to ask before you send young people into harm's way."
Kerry left Roanoke for a rally in Memphis. He plans to visit both states on the day of the primary and will watch the results Tuesday night at a rally at George Mason University in Fairfax.
Sen. John Edwards campaigned Monday in Norfolk.
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