Bush, Kerry Plug Cures For Econ
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry heads to the hospital in Boston Wednesday, for surgery to repair a shoulder injury suffered on his campaign bus last January.
President Bush, who like Kerry was on the road Tuesday talking about money issues in an effort to win votes, is also closer to home and hearth Wednesday.
As the Democratic presidential candidate gets himself fixed up by sports medicine specialists at Massachusetts General, who predict a quick recovery, Mr. Bush will be mingling with members of the Baseball Hall of Fame - at a White House luncheon.
Bigger still on the former baseball team owner's agenda is Wednesday night's D.C. dinner to raise more cash for the Bush-Cheney campaign war chest.
Voters' own bank accounts, however, were the issue Tuesday as Mr. Bush and Kerry did their best to sell their own ideas on the economy and attack each other's proposals.
Mr. Bush traveled to the battleground state of Wisconsin, where touted free trade and lower taxes as the cure for the state's ailing industrial sector, which has lost 80,000 manufacturing jobs.
Kerry went to San Diego to unveil his plan to fight rising gasoline prices.
On his ninth visit to a state he narrowly lost in 2000, Mr. Bush pointed to an improved unemployment rate - down to 5.2 percent in February from 5.8 percent a year ago and below the national average of 5.6 percent.
"Wisconsin is helping lead the growth of this country," said the president, addressing a Republican-friendly audience of Chamber of Commerce members. Thanks to free-trade policies, says the president, "farms, factories and offices are shipping high-quality goods all across America and all throughout the world."
Mr. Bush chose to visit Appleton, where the longtime cornerstone of the local economy, the paper industry, has lost hundreds of jobs in recent months. The president said he felt the pain of those stung by the bad economy.
"You ask any business leaders here, they can tell you what it's like to try to manage during the recession," said Mr. Bush. "There's uncertainty, the workers are getting anxious, sometimes you have to lay some people off. Recession is tough for a country to deal with."
Mr. Bush acknowledged the issue of outsourcing, saying he knows there is concern about "jobs going overseas... For some people looking for work, I understand that."
Mr. Bush went on to say that efforts to reduce outsourcing - as Kerry and lawmakers in numerous states have proposed - are not the answer.
The best way to confront the problem, said the president, is to "make sure America remains the best place in the world to do business" and not to resort to "economic isolationism" by erecting barriers to the U.S. market.
The president has been using the phrase "economic isolationism" to attack Kerry's trade proposals including the Democrat's promise that he will re-examine all the country's trade agreements in his first 120 days as president to make sure they are fair to American workers.
Hundreds of anti-Bush demonstrators protested along the motorcade route, chanting, "Bush go home!" They held signs that read, "Bush: No Millionaire Left Behind" and "Help Create Jobs. Lay Off George Bush."
Protesters greeted him again when he made an unannounced stop at the annual Governor's Conference on Emergency Management, but the reception was warmer inside. Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle is a Democrat.
In California, meanwhile, Kerry said that as president he would stop pumping oil into the nation's emergency stockpile until prices fell and would pursue new energy policies because "no young American in uniform ought to ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil from the Middle East."
He spoke on a day that saw the Bush campaign roll out a television ad slamming Kerry's record on gas taxes, Kerry responded by portraying the White House as tied to the oil industry.
"Instead of revealing a new set of attack ads, I think Dick Cheney ought to reveal who the oil executives are that he met in secret with to set the oil policy of the United States," Kerry said during a rally at the University of California, San Diego.
San Diego has the highest gasoline prices in the nation, with a gallon of unleaded regular selling for $2.12.
Kerry said he would pressure the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to provide more oil, simplify rules on gas to reduce costs, and develop more energy-efficient vehicles.
"We deserve an administration that doesn't fake it to the American people and pretend that somehow by drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge we can deal with the problems of America," he said. "We can't provide the supply of oil America needs from the Alaska Wildlife Refuge or from any other source in the United States because we only have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves."