Bush: Kerry Abandoned U.S. Troops

Courting conservative voters in Michigan's rural Upper Peninsula, President Bush said Tuesday that rival John Kerry abandoned support for U.S. troops in Iraq and then bragged about it.

"Leaders need to stand up with our military," Mr. Bush told a cheering crowd, kicking off a two-day tour of three key states that he lost in 2000 to former Democratic Vice President Al Gore.

Ratcheting up the voltage of his attacks, Mr. Bush blasted the Kerry-Edwards ticket for voting against last year's funding bill for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"In the Senate, only a small out-of-the-mainstream minority voted against the legislation, and two of those 12 senators are my opponents and his running mate," said the president.

Kerry said Monday that he and Edwards were proud of the fact that they opposed the $87 billion aid package, "when we knew the policy had to be changed." Kerry said the Bush administration should have gotten other allies to help with the war in Iraq.

"He is entitled to his view," Mr. Bush said, adding that Kerry should not have gone on to "brag about it."

The president's visit to the largest city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula with a population of 20,000 was the first by a sitting president since William Howard Taft in 1911.

"It was worth the wait," Judi Schwalbach told the crowd. She is the mayor of the Upper Peninsula town of Escanaba, Mich. Mr. Bush's daughter Barbara accompanied him to Michigan.

Mr. Bush also criticized Kerry and Edwards for saying the administration has done a poor job of handling the economy.

"My opponents look at all this progress and somehow conclude that the sky is falling," he declared, saying that the economy has added 1.5 million new jobs since last summer, including 29,600 in Michigan since February.

Mr. Bush won 12 of the 15 counties in the Upper Peninsula four years ago, but lost Marquette County where the president spoke Tuesday. Marquette is heavily unionized by steelworkers in two iron ore mines that are still in operation in the area.

Overall, Mr. Bush lost Michigan by about 5 percentage points, and he wants its 17 electoral votes in his column this year. He was trumpeting what he views as an improving economy in a region that is heavily blue collar.

Yet the region leans strongly Republican, exemplifying the troubles Democrats have in rural America.

Many Upper Peninsula voters fit the profile of so-called Reagan Democrats, said Robert Kulisheck, a political science professor at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

"They tend to be liberal to progressive on economic issues but conservative on social issues such as gun control," Kulisheck said.

Mr. Bush spoke in a wooden domed auditorium at Northern Michigan University a short distance from the shores of Lake Superior.

Hundreds of people lined the streets, craning their necks for a view of the president as his motorcade sped past. Most were supportive.

Before leaving Washington on Tuesday morning, Mr. Bush signed into law a bill to extend a trade pact that offers duty-free treatment on some goods and other trade benefits to the poorer countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

"It has given American businesses greater confidence to invest in Africa," he said during a 15-minute signing ceremony to extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act. "There is a growing consensus in both Africa and the United States that open trade to international investment are the surest and fastest ways for Africa to make progress."

He boarded Marine One on the South Lawn with one of his twin daughters, Barbara, a recent college graduate. Her sister, Jenna, made her debut on the campaign trail with her father last week. Asked if this was Barbara's first time, Mr. Bush nodded, gave a thumb's up and walked hand-in-hand with her across the lawn.

Mr. Bush makes a second bus trip on Wednesday through Wisconsin, a state he lost in 2000 by fewer than 6,000 votes.

In May, Mr. Bush's bus tour hugged the western flank of the state, along the Mississippi River. This time he trolls eastern Wisconsin, between Milwaukee and Green Bay. He was also traveling to Minnesota.