Edwards, Kerry stress key themes in New York
James Kuhnhenn and Jim Morrill / Knight
Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
NEW YORK - John Kerry went uptown to Harlem and across the
river to Queens while John Edwards headed to midtown
Manhattan's garment district on Monday, campaigning for
the Democratic presidential nomination by blaming President
Bush's economic policies for the nation's lost jobs.
Both men surrounded themselves with unemployed union workers
and attacked the Bush administration's tax cuts, and
their differences were more stylistic than substantive.
North Carolina Sen. Edwards, the son of South Carolina mill
workers, offered an empathetic ear and the occasional hug.
Massachusetts Sen. Kerry, the Yale-educated Vietnam veteran,
accused Bush of lacking a vision for the country and of
offering empty words while Americans suffered.
Kerry also accused the Bush camp of attempting to
"nickel and dime" his voting record and of trying
to raise questions about his military service. But when
pressed, he acknowledged that Republicans were criticizing
his anti-war stance after he returned from Vietnam.
"They said ... `we're going to attack his
activities after the war,'" Kerry said. "That
reflects on the service, it's a reflection on me, on what
I chose to do. That is making Vietnam itself an issue 34
years later."
Even as they trained their sights on the president, Edwards
and Kerry played political chess, trying to outwit each other
on campaign schedules and placement of television ads for
next week's crucial Super Tuesday contests in 10 states.
A sweeping Kerry victory could virtually assure him the
nomination, but a strong showing by Edwards among Democratic
voters could prolong the contest.
Both planned to begin running ads Tuesday in upstate New
York, a more conservative region than Manhattan. Edwards is
already running ads in Georgia and Ohio, and Kerry's ads
will go up in both states Tuesday.
All three states have faced significant job losses;
Democrats think Ohio in particular could be a battleground in
the fall general election.
Kerry, listless and flat immediately after his surprisingly
narrow victory in the Wisconsin primary last week, appeared
reinvigorated after taking two days off in Boston last week.
Anticipating Bush's address to Republican governors
Monday evening, Kerry told supporters at the Alhambra
Ballroom in Harlem that the president was already running
scared.
"We have George Bush on the run because he's going
to go out there and start his campaign officially tonight
before we even have a nominee of the Democratic Party,"
he said. "He's going to lay out what he calls his
vision. I think it is extraordinary that four years into this
administration we're finally going to get what this
president calls his vision for this nation."
"I believe that what he will do tonight is run away
from his own record because he doesn't have a record to
run on," Kerry said.
Edwards took his campaign to the hall of a union
representing textile and apparel makers, and listened to the
likes of Chinese-born Agnes Wong, who works in a garment
factory in New York's Chinatown and has watched jobs flee
the city for, among other places, China.
In a room decorated with fading union banners, Edwards
outlined plans to create 330,000 jobs in New York in two
years, in part through tax incentives that would encourage
companies to put jobs here while discouraging them from
sending them overseas.
He also used the occasion to stress his identity and empathy
with the plight of workers such as Omar Alexander.
Alexander, 59, cut cloth at a New York apparel company for
33 years before losing his job when the company moved
production overseas. Now, a few years from retirement,
he's unemployed.
"What you're describing is something I've seen
over and over and over," Edwards told him, describing
how his own father worked in a textile mill. "This is
not just a paycheck for you. It has an effect on your
self-respect and dignity. I take this personally."
Wong, 60, told Edwards how workers are struggling. Then she
said, "You are going to win for us."
Edwards bent down and hugged her.
Kerry has been stressing two messages: blaming Bush for job
losses during his administration and attacking the Bush
campaign for its growing criticism of his record on national
security.
"I don't know what it is these Republicans think
... those who never fought a war think they have a leg up on
us Democrats who did, and that they're somehow stronger
on defense because they've embraced every (weapons)
system that was ever proposed," Kerry told reporters
later at York College in Jamaica, Queens.
Earlier, Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, a force in New
York Democratic politics, endorsed Kerry by comparing the
Massachusetts senator's combat record with Bush's
enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard and avoidance of
service in Vietnam.
"When someone parades around saying that he is a war
president, it is a time for the Democratic Party to get a
warrior," Rangel said. Kerry "had his choice to go
to the National Guard if he wanted to, he chose not to."
Both Kerry and Edwards displayed their new Secret Service
entourages on Monday. Kerry, who requested a protective
detail last week, traveled up Manhattan's West Side in a
motorcade of about a dozen vehicles.
Monday marked Edwards' first day with Secret Service
protection. Agents were visible throughout the union hall and
stopped traffic on 19th Street when he left the building.
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(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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