Democrats blast Bush for job losses
Candidates target trade, labor policies at N.H., Iowa rallies
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Democratic presidential candidates highlighted yesterday the nearly 3 million jobs lost during the Bush administration as they pitched for votes at a series of Labor Day events in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who has already landed the biggest labor prize with an early endorsement by the Teamsters, said President Bush's trade policies and his failure to provide health insurance for all workers were morally wrong decisions.
"It is time that we had a White House that would stand for working families and labor unions," Gephardt told an audience of unionized workers attending an AFL-CIO breakfast in New Hampshire. "Big business and special interests have had their president for the last 2 1/2 years. Don't you think it's time we had a president who would stand for working families and labor unions?"
Addressing the same group, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts promised to get workers off the unemployment line, if elected, with a massive public works program. He also condemned the administration for celebrating laborers -- especially emergency workers who died in the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- while cutting benefits with such proposals as a plan to end overtime pay for some workers.
"On this Labor Day, a few days before Sept. 11th, I think it's important to remind the president, remind the Republican Party, that every one of those heroes they talk about, every firefighter, every emergency medical personnel, every member of [the service workers union], every single police officer that went up those stairs so that others might live in those buildings, every one of them was a member of organized labor and they believed in the right to strike, the right to bargain, the right to be able to do better," Kerry said.
Kerry and Gephardt made joint appearances in Manchester and Milford.
Gephardt said the nation's current trade policy lets companies use cheap labor but perpetuates inhumane conditions for foreign laborers.
"We need a trade policy that lifts up standards for workers around the world," Gephardt told about 300 union members at a breakfast in Manchester. "We need to treat workers everywhere in the world with decency and dignity."
Speaking to the same crowd, Kerry stressed the need for a labor secretary who will protect the right of workers to organize. He also said that as president he would work to ensure that corporations comply with antitrust laws and are not given unfair tax breaks.
Meanwhile, Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont, issued a statement in Des Moines saying: "Tomorrow, nearly 9 million Americans will have no job to return to after their three-day weekend. We need a president who is creating jobs, instead of losing more jobs than any president has since the Great Depression."
Since the nation's recession began in March 2001, the economy has lost 2.7 million net jobs -- 2.4 million of them from the manufacturing sector. Those facts and the setting for Bush's speech fueled Gephardt's animated address to the labor group.
In an interview before his speech, Gephardt said he was heartened by recent polls suggesting that he was running strongest in the industrial heartland. He also highlighted his union support by traveling with Duane Woerth, an airline captain and president of the Air Line Pilots Association. With 6,600 members, it is the largest pilots group in the world. It has yet to announce its backing, but Woerth said an endorsement could come in October.
"It's not an accident that George Bush is in Ohio and Indiana and Missouri this week for the umpteenth time," Gephardt said. "He knows where this election will be decided. It's going to be decided in the industrial states. That's where I'm strong, that's where the unions are strong, that's where I can beat George Bush."
Kerry continued the same aggressive tack he launched Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" program during his breakfast speech. In a prelude to announcing his candidacy publicly today in Charleston, S.C., the senator argued that he should win the nomination, in part because he is electable against a GOP candidate.
"We need to win," he said, before repeating himself and then saying for a third time with deliberation, "We -- need -- to -- win. And to win, I believe we need a candidate who can convince America that we have the ability to make this country stronger and safer and more secure.
"We saw what happened in 2002. As [former president] Bill Clinton said, `2002 proved that strong and wrong beats weak and right.' I will bring to our party the capacity to be able to be strong and right at the same time." After the speech, Kerry visited working firefighters and police officers in Manchester before marching in a parade in Milford. He then boarded his first campaign charter for the flight to Charleston.En route to Charleston yesterday, Kerry cracked open a beer, came back to speak with reporters, and for a second consecutive day raised questions about Dean's abilities to be president. "Howard Dean said he's going to balance the budget in the first three years -- Try it and see what kind of pain is going to happen to the economy as a whole."
Kerry has pledged to halve the federal budget deficit during his first four years.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.
