Kerry Opens 2-Week Drive on the Economy [Kerry to fix that which is not broken]

The New York Times ^ | June 15, 2004 | ROBIN TONER

[Brilliant]

ATLANTIC CITY, June 14 - Senator John Kerry served notice Monday that he still considered the economy a central vulnerability for President Bush despite strong employment growth in recent months.

Beginning a two-week focus on the economy, officials with the Democratic challenger's campaign argued that Mr. Bush's record should be judged on his entire tenure, not on the turnaround of the past few months.

"If you get D-minuses for three and a half years in college, one semester of a B-minus does not get you on the honor roll," said Gene Sperling, who was a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and is now advising Mr. Kerry.

"Our economy doesn't recover after three and a half extremely weak years of job creation with just a few positive months,'' Mr. Sperling added.

Moreover, the Kerry campaign asserted, the quality of many of those new jobs, the shift to employment in lower-paying industries with scanty benefits and the pressures of rising health, education and energy costs have combined to create an increasingly strained middle class. The campaign issued a report Monday indicating that 1.6 million households filed for bankruptcy in 2003, up a third from 2000.

Bush campaign officials fired back, with a spokesman, Steve Schmidt, mocking Mr. Kerry for "his pessimism and misery tour.''

"Senator Kerry ignores the good economic news,'' Mr. Schmidt added, "and plays to people's fears and anxieties."

But Mr. Kerry, signaling the themes of the next few weeks, suggested that it was Mr. Bush who was out of touch. Landing here in Atlantic City to attend a fund-raising reception Monday night and then speak to the New Jersey A.F.L.-C.I.O. on Tuesday, he declared, "We're here to make sure that Americans get a job where if you work, and work hard, you can actually pay your bills at the end of the day."

"I've met parents all over this country who are struggling to be able to send their kids to school,'' he added. "Where 20 years ago one job allowed them to send their kid to college, now two barely does it."

Mark Mellman, the Kerry campaign's pollster, said voters overwhelmingly agreed with this more sober assessment of the economy, in several recent polls giving Mr. Bush decidedly poor ratings on his economic stewardship. Mr. Mellman said that voters felt besieged by rising prices and that they expected interest rates to rise soon and make their household budgets even worse.

The Kerry campaign officials brushed aside any notion that they would be perceived as this year's version of what Republicans have sometimes called "doom and gloom" Democrats. The Kerry aides said this was a year very different from 1984 and 1988, when such depictions proved effective against the Democratic nominees, Walter F. Mondale and Michael S. Dukakis.

In general, Kerry advisers, buoyed by recent polls showing a tight race and continued problems for Mr. Bush, projected a decidedly bullish air at a briefing for the press in Washington on Monday. Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, described Mr. Bush as "a rudderless incumbent" who had engaged in a campaign of negative ads rather than positive proposals for the future, a calculation that Kerry advisers argue will ultimately be proved decisively wrong.

Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign, declared, "I think it's fair to say that John Kerry won the spring general election, and I think he won it decisively."

Mr. Kerry is expected to take his economic argument this week to Ohio and Michigan, in a region achingly sensitive to the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs.

Mr. Sperling conceded at the briefing Monday that Mr. Bush was not entirely to blame for the economic troubles of the past three and a half years.

"No question, George Bush had a couple of bad breaks on his watch,'' Mr. Sperling said, "most specifically 9/11 and the slowing economy of 2001. But he also inherited 4.1 percent unemployment, a doubling of productivity, the strongest fiscal situation in our country, and he had a Congress that three different times did what he wanted'' on tax and economic policy.

The two economic views clashed throughout the day. Even as the Kerry campaign was briefing, the Commerce Department was hailing "strong" retail sales growth in May. Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans declared, "More Americans are going on spending sprees at shopping malls as more people are finding well-paying jobs" thanks to "President Bush's leadership."

[onedoug]

True conservatives are not represented by either Republicrat faction in this year's election.

Yeah? Well, if I were in poverty, living under a bridge, I'd still consider I was better off under Bush.

[GailA]

He ignores that TAXES, higher and higher TAXES is why it now takes TWO people to make ends meet.