Kerry Picks Up Dean, Union Support

After nearly a week of vacationing in Idaho, John Kerry returned to the campaign trail Thursday and picked up endorsements from former rival Howard Dean and a major union.

President Bush, meanwhile, was visiting the heart of Kerry country on a campaign trip to Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Kerry and Dean put aside their disagreements over tax cuts and the war in Iraq and promised their supporters they would combine forces to help the Massachusetts senator drive Mr. Bush out of the White House.

"We may have started this campaign by discussing our differences, but we will win it by reminding America that what unites this country is so much more powerful that what has ever divided us in the past," Kerry told a rally at George Washington University.

Pledging to use his new grass-roots organization for Kerry's bid, Dean said the country would be devastated by another four years of what he called a "right-wing ideological agenda" and weak leadership.

"Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America," Dean asked the crowd, "a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star from the battlefields of Vietnam?"

The endorsement by Dean, who was a bitter critic of Kerry during the primary campaign, was another signal that Kerry has become the leader of the Democratic Party as its presumed presidential nominee.

Former Presidents Carter and Clinton, 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore, and all of Kerry's primary rivals, except Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley Braun, were expected to join a party celebration dinner Thursday night. The show of unity was expected to raise more than $11 million for the national committee.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees also endorsed Kerry after a meeting of the union's executive council. With 1.3 million members, AFSCME is the second-largest union in the AFL-CIO and boasts one of organized labor's largest and most savvy political operations.

Earlier Thursday, Kerry and Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe said the party, with $25 million and no debt, was better prepared than ever before to challenge the GOP and its incumbent president.

"The tools are in place," McAuliffe told the National Newspaper Publishers Association, leaders of black newspapers around the country. "Now we need to make sure to use these tools to make sure that John Kerry is elected president."

Kerry met privately with Dean's congressional supporters and donors before accepting his endorsement. Before the rally, Dean sent supporters an e-mail asking them to contribute money for Kerry's bid.

"Our campaigns had a spirited debate during the primary, but the time for focusing on our differences has passed. This is not just John Kerry's campaign – it is all of ours, and we all must take responsibility for its success. We cannot tolerate four more years of George W. Bush's right-wing ideological agenda at home and weak leadership abroad," Dean wrote.

Kerry has been largely out of public view for the better part of a week as he and his wife, Teresa Heinz, vacationed at their home in Ketchum, Idaho. He arrived in Washington late Wednesday and told reporters traveling with him that he felt revived.

"No more long answers," Kerry said. "It doesn't take me long to recharge my batteries."

Kerry said he would stay focused on jobs and the economy and was unlikely to comment on the past two days of testimony about intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

President Bush was also talking jobs – and raising more money for his re-election campaign – on a trip Thursday to New England.

He was highlighting his plans for retraining laid-off workers during a stop in New Hampshire, a state that's lost 17.8 percent of its manufacturing jobs over two years, the greatest percentage decline of any state in the country.

Later, Mr. Bush was heading to Massachusetts to prove that there's Republican money in Kerry's hometown of Boston. It will be only the fourth time since taking office that Mr. Bush has been to Massachusetts, a state that gave him one of the biggest defeats in the 2000 election, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

He doesn't expect to win there this year, but he will pick up some contributions at a $2,000-per-person fund-raiser for a re-election campaign that has already raised $170 million. A Boston fund-raiser by Vice President Dick Cheney brought in $1.2 million last June.

The trip coincided with the airing of a new television commercial that accuses Kerry of voting to increase taxes on Social Security benefits, opposing small business tax credits and supporting a 50-cent-a-gallon tax increase.

As in past commercials and criticism, the Bush campaign drives home its point by making assumptions about the Democrat's policies and scouring his 19-year Senate record for vulnerabilities. Kerry has accused Mr. Bush of distorting the facts; Republicans say his past votes and statements are fair game.