Posted on 09/06/2004 2:59:40 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
RACINE, W.Va. - (KRT) - Seizing on a common campaign sign that features President Bush's middle initial, Sen. John Kerry on Monday declared that "W stands for wrong," shifting his focus from the rhetorical quagmires of Iraq and Vietnam to pocketbook issues.
Kerry spent Labor Day in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina blaming Bush for economic problems that he said were the worst since the Great Depression. He also retooled his campaign team on the fly.
"As the president likes to say, there's nothing complicated about it," Kerry said, speaking to a crowd of about 2,000 at a United Mine Workers Labor Day picnic. "It all comes down to one letter: W. W stands for wrong. Wrong choices, wrong judgment, wrong priorities for our country."
Aides said that Kerry is jettisoning the talk about his own Vietnam war record that dominated his message throughout the summer and will hit the economy hard, believing that job losses, falling wages and rising health care costs will convince millions of voters that they are worse off than they were four years ago.
"We're going to close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping jobs overseas, and we're going to reward companies that believe that American workers do the best job in the world," Kerry said. He also promised to get health care costs under control.
Bush also went through the traditional Labor Day campaign kickoff ritual, but limited his campaigning to a single evening rally in Missouri.
Kerry's day began with a front-porch question and answer session with supporters at the home of Dale and Jody Rhome on West College Street, a tree-lined block in Canonsburg, Pa.
Citing falling wages and rising health care costs, as well as Bush administration rules restricting overtime pay, Kerry said the president had "dishonored" workers and that "the average American worker was moving backwards."
Boisterous pro-Bush protesters at the end of the block screamed "flip flop" and "four more years," drowning out speakers at the event. As Kerry blasted Bush for deficit spending driven by tax cuts and a $200 billion war in Iraq, the catcalls grew louder.
"They don't like to hear the truth - it's kind of funny," Kerry said. "Every one of those people screaming over there, they all have a bigger debt to pay."
Even as he focused on the economy, questions from the audience brought Kerry back to Iraq. "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place and the wrong time," he said. Kerry said he believes he could have U.S. troops home by the end of a first term, which would be 2009.
Bush, in prepared remarks, responded: "After voting for the war, but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position.
"Suddenly he's against it again. No matter how many times Senator Kerry changes his mind, it was right for America and it's right for America now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power."
Kerry on Sunday brought veteran operative John Sasso in to travel with him and help make strategic decisions faster.
"He wanted a peer, someone his own age," a senior adviser said. "John Sasso is smart and tested."
The two men have been friends for years, and Sasso has enough history with Kerry to be able to reel him in when necessary.
Mary Beth Cahill, a former aide to Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., will continue as campaign manager, running things from headquarters, advisers said. In recent weeks, Clinton veterans have joined the campaign, including Joe Lockhart, the former White House press secretary, and Joel Johnson, a communications adviser to Clinton. Some Democrats are also urging other former Clinton advisers to take active roles.
Upheaval is common in presidential campaigns - Kerry, for example, fired his first campaign manager just three months before the Iowa caucuses - but it is rare to do it this close to Election Day. The moves follow weeks of mounting concerns among Democrats as Kerry has foundered and lost ground to harsh attacks on his character and fitness for office.
President Clinton told Kerry in a 90-minute phone conversation Saturday that the endless back-and-forth on the Vietnam war - and Kerry's role as a veteran and a protester - was starving the campaign of oxygen.
Aides say they had long planned to buttress the campaign staff and the moves were not a sign of panic, downplaying suggestions that the Clintonistas and existing Kerry staff in headquarters would clash. "It's all hands on deck," said spokesman David Wade. "There is one team."
At LEAST one. They have a long way to go, but the talent is clearly there. Gonna be fun to watch them grow up.
Rule #1 of speech-giving: target the audience. This stuff sells in the Blue Zone. Kerry's next rebuttal will be "'Fraid not!".
I thought W stands for Wright?
Anything is better than another year of Clausen Pickles. :P
I thought W stands for Wright?
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