Bush Holds 1st Big Rally, In Fla.

President Bush sought re-election support Saturday in the state that put him in the White House, charging that John Kerry is a leading opponent of tax relief and has voted to raise taxes more than 350 times over his political career.

Speaking before thousands of supporters in the first official campaign rally of his re-election bid, the president highlighted Kerry's vote against Bush-backed tax cuts.
"Senator Kerry is one of the main opponents of tax relief in the United States Congress," Mr. Bush said. "However, when tax increases are proposed, it's a lot easier to get a yes vote out of him. Over the years, he's voted over 350 times for higher taxes on the American people."

The line of attack against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is part of a Bush campaign effort to portray the Massachusetts senator as a tax-and-spend liberal.

Mr. Bush went on to deride Kerry for "proposing a lot of new federal spending" without explaining how he would pay for it.

The New York Times reported in its Saturday editions that Mr. Bush's campaign is following "an aggressive and precise 90-day media strategy to define ... Kerry as indecisive and lacking conviction, with a coordinated blitz of advertisements, speeches and sound bites."

The newspaper cited senior campaign advisers.

The goal, several campaign aides told the Times, is to first strip Kerry of the positive image that he carried away from the Democratic primary contests and then to define him issue by issue in their own terms before the summer vacation season. The central thrusts will be national security and taxes, they said.

The aides said the strategy was planned weeks ago in coordination with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political aide, while Mr. Kerry was battling for his party's nomination.

In the Orlando rally, Mr. Bush said, "There's a gap between Senator Kerry's spending promises and Senator Kerry's promises of a lower deficit. It's what I call a tax gap.

"Given Senator Kerry's record of supporting tax increases, it's pretty clear how he's going to fill the tax gap - he's going to tax all of you."

"Fortunately," Mr. Bush added, to wild cheers, "you're not going to give him that chance."

Mr. Bush took on Kerry for voting against tax breaks for some married couples and families with children and an expansion of the 10 percent tax bracket, as well as other pieces of the cuts that have passed during Mr. Bush's presidency.

Kerry has said he supports permanently extending those cuts, which are due to expire at year's end. But he wants to roll back other breaks for people who earn more than $200,000 a year. He has said that money would be used to help cut the deficit by at least half in his first term.

Kerry also has proposed a health care plan, estimated to cost about $900 billion. His campaign has said he will soon say how he would pay for that plan.

The claim that Kerry is promoting job-killing policies to raise taxes has become a staple of the Bush campaign.

Another is the accusation that Kerry flip-flops and his leadership on national security and other issues cannot be trusted. That theme also showed up in Bush's address.

The president mocked Kerry for saying that some world leaders quietly back his candidacy and for explaining his vote against an $87 billion bill for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan by saying he had first voted for it.

"He won't tell us the name of the foreign admirers," Bush said, to loud laughter. "That's OK. Either way, I'm not too worried, because I'm going to keep my campaign right here in America."

Kerry has said that to name the leaders would betray confidences. A campaign statement said Kerry is neither seeking nor accepting foreign leader endorsements.

Kerry, who supported Mr. Bush's Iraq war resolution but has since opposed how Bush conducted the war, said he voted against the spending bill because he did not support the president's postwar plans.

"I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it," Kerry said earlier in the week. He explained that he supported a failed amendment that would have funded the programs by repealing Bush tax cuts.

That quote is being used in the president's new television ad.

"That sure clears things up, doesn't it?" the president asked his audience. "His answers aren't always clear. But the voters will have a very clear choice in this campaign."

First lady Laura Bush gave a rare introductory speech on behalf of her husband.

"I like to think I'm my husband's biggest fan," she said. "But looking out at you I think I've got some competition."

On the eve of Mr. Bush's Florida appearance, the Kerry campaign issued an attack of its own, saying the president has left a trail of broken promises.

"President Bush's economic policies have failed Florida," said Rep. Kendrick Meek, Kerry's state campaign chairman. Mr. Bush's "corporate buddies have shipped 70,000 Floridian manufacturing jobs overseas and now it's time for Mr. Bush to get the pink slip."

It was Mr. Bush's 20th visit as president to the state both parties regard as critical to the November elections.

In 2000, Democrat Al Gore contested Mr. Bush's ultra-narrow victory in Florida, arguing that some votes were not counted because of ballot problems. Recounts conducted in some counties were stopped by the U.S. Supreme Court after 36 days, handing Mr. Bush a 537-vote victory in Florida that gave him enough electoral votes to win the presidency.