2/17/2004

Kerry sets sights on Bush; Dean loses campaign leader

Nedra Pickler
Associated Press

WAUSAU, Wis. — A confident John Kerry launched a full-throttle attack on President Bush’s economic policies, mostly ignoring his Democratic rivals on the eve of the Wisconsin primary. Howard Dean’s campaign shed another top manager and John Edwards vowed to press on no matter how he fares today.

Kerry, who has a commanding lead in the race to oppose Bush this fall, chided the president for taking time out Sunday to attend the Daytona 500, saying the country was bleeding jobs while he posed for a “photo opportunity.” Bush had donned a racing jacket to officially open NASCAR’s most prestigious event in front of some 180,000 fans.

“We don’t need a president who just says, ‘Gentlemen start your engines,”’ Kerry said. “We need a president who says, ‘America, let’s start our economy and put people back to work.”’

Kerry for the most part has chosen in recent days to aim his Campaign 2004 rhetoric directly at Bush as he has lapped his competitors, winning all but the South Carolina and Oklahoma delegate-selection contests.

His broadside against Bush came as the president argued anew against any rollback in the tax cuts that Congress has passed at his behest, and on a day in which Dean divulged the departure of national campaign chairman Steve Grossman.

For his part Edwards declared “there are differences” with his Democratic rivals and said he was confident his campaign was gaining momentum. He said he would remain in the race well into March and the Super Tuesday round of electoral faceoffs.

Dean told reporters: “Let me remind you all that I have more delegates than everybody else in this race except John Kerry. So I think the campaign obituaries that some of you are writing are a little bit misplaced.”

Polls have shown Kerry with a wide lead heading into today, but Edwards vowed to press ahead. While he has sought throughout the primary season to avoid attacking his rivals, Edwards said he would make differences clear and insisted there’s plenty of time for voters to see those differences.

“It’s not too late because this primary process is going well into March,” said Edwards. “I want voters to know what the differences are between us.”

Kerry said the first step to repairing the economy is to repeal Bush’s tax cuts for people who make more than $200,000.

Bush, appearing in Florida on a visit that the White House characterized as official business, told an audience at a window factory: “You hear people in Washington saying, ’Oh let’s not make the tax cuts permanent.’ When you hear somebody say that, they’re saying ’We’re gonna tax you. We’re gonna raise your taxes’.”

Bush didn’t mention Kerry by name. But a spokesman for the president, Scott Stanzel, said, “Senator Kerry’s pledge to raise taxes on Americans is precisely the wrong thing to do.”

In the Dean campaign, the departure of Grossman was the second high-level change in less than three weeks; campaign manager Joe Trippi was ousted in the wake of Dean’s losses to Kerry in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Grossman said he had neither resigned nor been asked to resign. But he said he understood why Dean considered him no longer part of the campaign.

“I think it’s fair to assume my public statements and actions as tantamount to a resignation,” said Grossman. “For the record, it didn’t happen quite that way. I tried to make it clear I would do nothing prior to the end of the Wisconsin primary.”