President Bush (news - web sites), right, and his wife Laura, wave to the crowd gathered at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Erie, Pa. for a campaign rally on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2004. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
Posted on 09/04/2004 9:00:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
AKRON, Ohio - President Bush (news - web sites) and John Kerry (news - web sites) battled over the economy and jobs in a small corner of the campaign's most fiercely contested state Saturday as polls showed a post-convention surge for the Republican in the White House.
Late Saturday, Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, was taken to a hospital in Mason City, Iowa, after complaining of an upset stomach, a spokeswoman said. She was taken to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa by ambulance from the airport.
"As a precaution, Mrs. Heinz Kerry had a series of routine tests performed and was released," said Sarah Geggenheimar, a spokeswoman for Heinz Kerry. "She is feeling better and is traveling to her home in Pittsburgh tonight as planned."
Heinz Kerry had just finished a private meeting with a group of local Democrats to talk about health care. She was traveling separately from her husband.
With little more than eight weeks remaining to Election Day, a Newsweek survey gave the president a lead of 52-41 over Kerry, with independent Ralph Nader (news - web sites) at 3 percent. A Time Magazine poll released a day earlier also made it an 11-point race.
"We're doing good," Kerry told an Ohio supporter. "They're going to get a bounce out of the convention, but we'll be coming back."
Presidential candidates often enjoy a boost in support in polls taken in the wake of their party conventions. Sometimes that can portend victory — but such gains also can melt away rapidly in the heat of a fall campaign.
Bush and Kerry both chose Ohio for their stage at the beginning of the Labor Day weekend, traditionally viewed as the kickoff for the fall campaign.
"They promised to create 6 million jobs, and guess what? They're about 7 million short," said Kerry, who also criticized the administration's new 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums.
"They can't come here to Akron or to any other place in America and talk to you about all the jobs that they created, because they haven't," he added.
A few miles up Interstate 77 outside Cleveland, Bush conceded the state has "pockets of unemployment that are unacceptable."
At the same time, he said, "the economy is strong and getting stronger," and accused his Democratic rival of proposing tax increases that would crimp the economy.
"He's not going to be taxing anybody in '05, because he's not going to win," the president added quickly to applause from his supporters in Broadview Heights. "We're going to win Ohio and we're going to win the country."
Kerry has said he would restore taxes to pre-Bush levels on people earning more than $200,000 to help pay for expanded health care coverage.
No Republican — Bush included — has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio, but lingering unemployment and anger about jobs getting shipped overseas have made the state a tossup.
Both men campaigned across the northeastern, Democratic part of the state, signaling a desire by Kerry to maximize his support, and an attempt by the president to hold down his rival's margins.
"I believe we need a new direction for America's families, and together, we're going to put the middle class first and get our economy back on track," the Massachusetts senator said in the Democrats' weekly radio address.
Ohio had an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent in July, the latest available. The national rate was 5.5 percent the same month, dipping to 5.4 percent in August.
Bush seized on new employment numbers showing 144,000 new jobs were added to payrolls as evidence of an improving economy. Kerry said it merely confirmed that the president's term would probably end with a net loss of jobs, the first since the Great Depression.
Kerry also criticized Bush for the 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums that beneficiaries will confront next year — an $11.60 jump per month and the largest in the history of the program.
A new campaign ad that starts airing Tuesday shows Bush promising in his convention speech to protect seniors, and then points to the Medicare increase announced a day later. "The wrong direction for the country," the narrator says.
An opponent of the Medicare prescription drug legislation that Bush signed earlier this year, Kerry criticized Bush in Ohio for policies that block Americans from buying their medicine at lower cost in Canada.
For his part, Bush said the tax cuts he pushed through Congress had helped restore economic growth after recession and the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We have got a plan to make sure that people who want a job can find one. The plan says that in order to keep jobs in America, we got to keep your taxes low," he said.
"Running up the taxes on the people right now would hurt the economic vitality and growth."
Kerry has said he will roll back tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans, but will cut taxes further for the middle class.
"This is not the time to give tax cuts to the Bill Gates (news - web sites) of the world," said Kerry's running mate, John Edwards (news - web sites), speaking in Newport, Wis., about the nearly $400 billion record deficit.
Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), campaigning in Roswell, N.M., continued criticizing Kerry for his vow to build coalitions and work with the United Nations (news - web sites) before going to war.
"We will never seek a permission slip to defend the United States," Cheney said on his fourth trip to New Mexico this year.
The Newsweek poll of 1,008 registered voters was taken Thursday and Friday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll also found Bush's approval rating at 52 percent, the first time it has topped 50 percent in the magazine's surveys since January. Also, 53 percent said they wanted to see Bush re-elected.
Both sides downplayed the polls. "I've got a lot of work to do," Bush said at an Ohio ice cream shop.
Kerry spokesman David Wade said the election won't be decided on a couple of national polls. "This is a race that's going to be decided in battleground states," he said.
suggest? Ouch! That must have hurt to write that title.
Bring It On!!!
OK ;-)
President Bush (news - web sites), right, and his wife Laura, wave to the crowd gathered at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Erie, Pa. for a campaign rally on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2004. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
"Both sides downplayed the polls. "I've got a lot of work to do," Bush said at an Ohio ice cream shop.
The President is, of course, very smart to ignore the encouraging polls and campaign as if he were still 10 points behind. He's always been way more politically savvy than the MSM has given him credit for. And where did all the comparisons to his father's 1992 campaign disappear to?
Aw. Diddums have a tummyache?
U.S. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) (L) speaks with Bill Shoeman among all his destroyed belongings caused by a flood from the Little Beaver Creek in Lisbon, Ohio, September 4, 2004. Kerry is on a two-day bus tour of the critical battleground state of Ohio, heading into the November 2 election. REUTERS/Jim Young US ELECTION
Looks like the WH after Bill and the Red gang checked out in '01.
Ulcers, no doubt, brought on from seeing how her husband is screwing up his campaign and the stress of being muzzled for the last month or so.
She probably ate some bad rice.. or crow.
Must be because she was eating Kerry Krow again after the GOP Convention.
A supporter for U.S. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) (L) and a protestor attend a rally for Kerry in Steubenville, Ohio, September 4, 2004. It is Kerry's last stop on his two-day bus tour of the critical battleground state of Ohio, heading into the November 2 election. REUTERS/Jim Young US ELECTION
Don't pay any attention to the newsweek poll. Then you will not be worried when 3 weeks from now they say that Bush's lead is narrowing.
Check Rasmussen or Gallup at the end of next week.
The daughters of U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites), Barbara (2nd R), and Jenna (R), join their father and first lady, Laura Bush, (2nd L), as they participate in a 2004 Pennsylvania Victory rally at the Erie Veterans Memorial Stadium in Erie, Pennsylvania, September 4, 2004. The president is campaigning by bus in Ohio and Pennsylvania today and is scheduled to return to the White House later this evening. REUTERS/Larry Downing US ELECTION
I hear ya.. We'll see if the numbers have legs. The debates may render some interesting numbers as well.
'Til then and beyond, we need to give 'em heck. ;-)
President Bush is in a much better position in his reelection run than his father was. I know the President is going to campaign the rest of the way as though he were twenty points down, and taking nothing for granted. I'm convinced the more people see and hear John Kerry the less inclined they will be to vote for him, and his poll numbers will keep dipping.
Taken to the hospital in a ambulance for a stomach ache? A stomach ache? Yep. These are people the common man can identify with.
Exactly. Keep on the attack. They can't play defense.
Ewwwwwww! Look at the hate on the lib's face as she's shoving her sign in front of the others. Typical.
"..after complaining of an upset stomach, a spokeswoman said. She was taken to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa by ambulance from the airport."
The first story I read said backpain and light-headedness. Nothing at all about stomach upset. Can't anything just be simple?
Isn't Pittsburgh where the Night of the Living Dead was filmed???
I'll stifle any celebration until there are double digit leads in Cally Fornia.
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