Bush offers little except blame, Kerry chargesPage 2 of 2 -- Kerry also said that in the Senate, he voted for the funding to supply body armor to US troops in Iraq, citing his support for past defense budgets. He did, however, vote against an $87 billion request for those troops that specifically included armor.
Bush campaign official Steve Schmidt charged that Kerry's Iraq position had "descended into incoherence," and pointed to a remark by Imus after the Kerry interview: "I asked [Kerry] a number of questions about Iraq and I can't tell you what he said," Imus said. At the Economic Club an hour after the radio interview, Kerry adopted a sharply critical tone for what his aides called his most important economic address of the fall. He sounded at times like a salesman determined to win over skeptical buyers, urging the audience to forgo self-interest and give up tax cuts in their high-income brackets so that the revenue could be invested in job creation, college tuition relief, and other domestic priorities. He tried to persuade members of the audience to see themselves as "shareholders of America" and see that their leader had turned a trillion-dollar budget surplus into trillions of dollars in federal debt. "Imagine what he could do in another four years. By his judgments, by his priorities, by the decisions he's made, he has caused these things to happen or to grow significantly worse," Kerry said. "And he refuses to admit the error of those choices." "George Bush is proud of the fact that even failure doesn't cause him to change his mind," Kerry said. "George Bush's failures are the result of a misplaced set of values and the wrong choices that always give more and more to those with the most and tells the middle class, 'You are not the priority.' " The attack, combined with a detailed review of his proposals to create jobs and extend health care to more Americans, drew steady applause and a standing ovation in the Detroit banquet hall, delighting some Kerry advisers who have been advising the candidate that fiercer attacks on Bush's economic record would help the Democrat gain ground in polls that put him slightly behind. In addition to Schmidt's comments, the Kerry campaign came in for criticism from veteran Democrat Tony Coehlo, a former congressman who ran Al Gore's campaign early in the 2000 race. Coehlo charged that Kerry's campaign was divided into rival camps and said "there is nobody in charge," according to the CBSNews.com website.
Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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