In Wisconsin, Kerry Offers Extensive Criticism Of Bush Record From Iraq To Dairy Policy
At his Wisconsin campaign event yesterday, John Kerry delivered a broad critique of President Bush. While much of the media focus was on Kerry's remarks on Iraq, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports Kerry even discussed "dairy policy." Kerry "laced his remarks with appeals tailored to Wisconsin voters and to issues that are thought to carry extra weight in this key state, from dairy farming to hunting." Kerry cited "recent news reports about an Agriculture Department official who suggested this year that the administration could gain votes in politically important dairy states by maintaining high milk prices through the election." The Washington Times /AP also reported that in the 1990s, Kerry "supported the Northeast Dairy Compact, a regional pricing program that propped up prices for Northeastern dairy farmers over objections from their Midwestern counterparts."
Bush Draws Huge Crowd At Ohio Event.
President Bush drew a large crowd to a rally in West Chester, Ohio, ranging in estimates from 35,000 (the Los Angeles Times) to 50,000 people (the Cincinnati Enquirer and Cincinnati Post). The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Republican officials "called it the largest crowd of any Bush re-election campaign rally." Besides "poking at Kerry's record, Bush highlighted his own stands on the war against terrorism, on education reform, on the economy and on Social Security."
Bush Team Works To Air Kerry's Long Senate Record.
Bush campaign officials say that Sen. John Kerry is trying to stake out new positions on old issues like Iraq, and they say Kerry believes that the effort will work because voters don't know much about his Senate record. "They think they can wipe the slate clean and start from scratch," said a Bush official. But he said the Bush-Cheney campaign has a plan to prevent that from happening, and has assembled a long and rich record of Kerry's positions to be used in new ads and in the presidential debates. One example is being made public today. It's a new ad from the Bush campaign that uses video of Kerry to show that he's taken different positions on Iraq. The campaign said that it would try to use Kerry's own words and video of him to continue the "flip-flop" attack. The Bush campaign aides said their effort would expand to domestic policy as Kerry moves his focus after the first debate this week from foreign policy to issues such as health care and the economy.
