Bush Plays Culture Card
By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer
Traveling Wisconsin by bus, speaking in Republican strongholds, President Bush continued his new strategy of waging a cultural attack on his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry.
As he stepped off the bus in Waukesha, a conservative suburb of liberal Milwaukee, Mr. Bush took the podium as the score from the Harrison Ford movie "Air Force One" played and an ecstatic crowd of 5,000 cheered.
Mr. Bush told his supporters, "Senator Kerry is rated as the most liberal member of the United States Senate. And he chose a fellow lawyer who is the fourth most liberal member of the United States Senate. Now, in Massachusetts, that's what they call balancing the ticket."
The audience roared in laughter, as did 6,000 Tuesday night at a convention center in Duluth, Minn., and another 10,000 at a university in Marquette, Mich., that afternoon.
Mr. Bush has fired the first salvos of a culture war gone political.
Traveling part of the Foundry – the Midwestern swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota – Mr. Bush said that Sen. Kerry "came out here to, to the Midwest, and he said he was the candidate with the conservative values."
"Booo!" the audience replied in Waukesha. They booed in Duluth and Marquette as well.
Shaking his head, the president leaned over the podium and said in his regular-guy speak, "I know, I know, I know." The president began chuckling. "I'm just quoting what he said," he added, chuckling again.
Kerry counters that it is a conservative value to rein in the deficit. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this year's deficit will reach a record of about $440 billion; Mr. Bush took office with a $127 billion surplus.
Democratic candidate Al Gore won Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin in 2000. But he only won Wisconsin by the narrow margin of 5,708 votes. (Ralph Nader received 94,070 votes there.) The three states combine for 37 electoral votes; if Mr. Bush wins any of them, it would be a coup on historically secure Democratic ground.
In this crucial Midwest swing, Mr. Bush is preaching to the chorus. They ask the questions he wants to hear. In Fond du Lac: How can he defeat Sen. Ted Kennedy's proposal to increase the minimum wage? How can faith-based organizations succeed? How (a little boy asks) can you get money so kids can go to college?
Mr. Bush always says he appreciates their questions. And they appreciate him. This, after all, is his base, friendly turf, in not wholly friendly states.
Kerry selected the genteel Southerner, Sen. John Edwards, as his running mate, in part, to challenge Mr. Bush on values. But the president is fighting back, and jabbing Kerry with fierce quips.
"If you disagree with John Kerry on most any issue, you may just have caught him on the wrong day," Mr. Bush said to more laughter in Waukesha. In a direct barb against Edwards, a former trial attorney, Mr. Bush spoke about "frivolous lawsuits."
"You cannot be pro-small business and pro-trial lawyer at the same time. You have to choose," he said in Waukesha. "My opponent has made his choice, and he put him on the ticket." Laughter followed.
In Edwards' home state of North Carolina last week, Mr. Bush said, "The senator from Massachusetts [Kerry] doesn't share their values." He spoke to values in Pennsylvania, throughout this middle-American swing, and likely will continue the theme in West Virginia on Friday.
Mr. Bush was chummy Wednesday. He made some unscheduled stops, holding a baby, greeting flag-wielding supporters. In Fond du Lac, he referred to former Wisconsin governor and now Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, calling him "T," and thanking him for coming along.
Wednesday morning in Waukesha, beneath a clear blue summer sky, with an immense American flag draped over a red farmhouse in the background, President Bush said, "We stand for institutions like marriage and family, which are the foundations of society," adding, "we stand for a culture of life."
Kerry accuses Mr. Bush of representing the "the forced values that divide" Americans. He questions the president for increasingly focusing on polarizing domestic issues on the stump. Mr. Bush replies that he is taking moral stands that Kerry shies away from.
In Waukesha, defending himself on his decision to go to war with Iraq, President Bush said it was "important for our fellow citizens to remember he [Saddam] used weapons of mass destruction against his own people."
Utilizing a case based on now-debunked CIA intelligence, he told the crowd in Waukesha that war in Iraq was still worth fighting because "Iraq today is a free and sovereign nation."
Mr. Bush then immediately segued into the Sept. 11 attacks, telling the audience the lesson of that day is that "America must confront threats before they fully materialize, before it's too late."