RACINE — Predictions that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry would come out swinging after last week’s Republican National Convention proved accurate Monday as the Massachusetts senator slammed President Bush’s record on jobs, health care and foreign affairs at a United Mine Workers Labor Day rally.
“It does all come down to one letter: W. George W. Bush,” Kerry told the audience in Boone County. “What do you think the W stands for? That W stands for wrong. Wrong choices, wrong direction for America.”
The phrase, which sounded as though it might be a new campaign slogan, was met with cheers as Kerry repeated it several times.
Some people in the crowd held signs reading, “Coal country is Kerry country.” Campaign officials said about 5,000 people attended, though far fewer appeared present.
Kerry slipped in national polls in August amid criticism of his record and comments about the Vietnam War. September began with the GOP convention in New York where a Democrat, Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, joined Republicans in attacking Kerry.
Kerry told the Labor Day crowd that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney favored Western coal and Texas oil over Appalachian coal.
“At that convention in New York last week, after four years of catering to the big oil companies and the Saudis, George Bush suddenly said that he wanted America to be energy independent,” Kerry said. “But he’s the one who invited energy company executives to secret meetings in the White House and let them write our energy policies.”
Kerry and other speakers often made biblical references at Monday’s event. Many hard-line Bush supporters say they like the president partially or mainly because he is a man of faith.
“They [Republicans] are pretty good at raising the Bible, pointing the Bible at us,” UMW President Cecil Roberts said before Kerry spoke. “But you know what we do in the Democratic Party? We open it up and see what it says.”
Roberts also noted how Kerry is “a hunter, and he’s not going to take your guns ’cause he loves to hunt.” He then presented Kerry with a shotgun made by UMW members in New York. Kerry held the gun over his head to cheers from the crowd.
Kerry also questioned Bush’s decision to lead the United States into the Iraq war, which has resulted in nearly 1,000 American casualties since the fighting began March 19, 2003.
“Of all George Bush’s wrong choices, the most catastrophic one is the mess in Iraq,” Kerry said. “It’s not that I would have done one thing differently in Iraq, I would have done everything differently. It was wrong to rush to war without a plan to win the peace. It was wrong not to build a strong international coalition of our allies. And it was wrong to put our young men and women into harm’s way without the equipment and body armor to protect themselves and get the job done.”
Kerry also questioned Bush’s economic policy, pointing to the net job loss of 900,000 since Bush took office in 2001. That’s 7 million less than Bush promised when he ran for president four years ago.
Kerry also borrowed a page from controversial filmmaker Michael Moore’s playbook in reference to what Kerry called broken promises about clean coal technology investments.
“In 2000, [Bush] came right here to West Virginia and promised $2 million for clean coal technology,” Kerry said.
“There’s an old saying: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Well, we’re not going to be fooled twice,” Kerry said, repeating a saying that Bush famously bungled. Footage of Bush’s mistake was used in Moore’s film “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Members of the mostly pro-Kerry crowd praised the speech, saying they liked the senator’s promises on jobs and health care.
“They talk about Kerry being a flip-flop,” said Stan Kenny, a retired coal miner who lives in Boone County. “That’s what Bush is. He put the steel tariffs in for workers, like myself, and then threw them out for his friends in big business.”
Although Bush, unlike former President Bill Clinton, enacted steel tariffs to help American mills like those in the Northern Panhandle, he cut them off last fall, 20 months into a three-year plan.
Before Kerry, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito spoke briefly at the rally and was booed. Afterward, the Republican said she prided herself on being accessible to people regardless of their feelings toward her.
Erik Wells, running against Capito, did speak, and send out a news release later Monday saying that the crowd’s reaction to Capito shows that she “is just not a friend of working families and they know it.”
To contact staff writer Paul Wilson, use e-mail or call 348-5179.
