(The Associated Press distributed the following article by David Espo on August 6.)
WASHINGTON, MO. — John Kerry whistle-stopped his way across Missouri on Thursday, reaching out for support from conservatives and independents. “Change is coming to Washington,” he said.
“Both Washingtons,” the Democratic presidential candidate said to cheers from a crowd of several hundred. They had turned out to greet him at a train station in Washington, Mo., a town of 15,000 along the Missouri River.
Joined by running mate John Edwards and their wives, Kerry briefly left his bunting-draped train to shake hands with residents as he and his aides invited comparisons to the famed whistle-stop tour that Harry Truman rode to re-election in 1948.
For the Kerry-Edwards ticket, the 26-car train was a switch of sorts. Behind were 1,700 miles of campaigning by bus. Ahead lay 1,800 miles by rail, ending in Arizona on Sunday night.
In Missouri, the senator repeatedly evoked memories of Truman, a man from Missouri who set out on a whistle-stop tour in 1948 and won re-election. Missouri has voted for the winner in every presidential race except one in the past century.
“I want you to talk to conservatives,” Kerry told a crowd at Union Station in St. Louis before his train began its trek westward.
“I want you to talk to Republicans and independents, and I want you to remind them there is nothing conservative about running up deficits as far as the eye can see and giving the debt to our children,” Kerry said.
While Kerry pitched his economic plans to disaffected Bush voters, he avoided mention of two prominent social issues in his first two stops in the state. Missouri long has been a center of anti-abortion activity, and the state’s voters on Tuesday endorsed an amendment to the state constitution that would ban gay marriage. Kerry supports abortion rights and opposes a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban gay marriages.
Kerry’s day started in Washington, D.C., where he pledged at a convention of minority journalists to pursue policies on race and the economy that would “lift up those who are left out.”
Kerry told the audience that even knowing that intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was faulty, he may still have supported a war to oust Saddam Hussein — but only after the United States had run out of diplomatic options and built a stronger alliance.
Kerry also criticized President Bush’s immediate handling of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, noting that Bush had stayed with a class of schoolchildren for several minutes after being told the second World Trade Center tower had been struck.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani blasted Kerry’s remarks, accusing him of borrowing attacks from the film Fahrenheit 9/11.
“John Kerry must be frustrated in his campaign if he is armchair quarterbacking based on cues from Michael Moore,” Giuliani said in a statement distributed by Bush’s campaign. “John Kerry is an indecisive candidate who has demonstrated an inconsistent position on the war on terror.”
The president is to address the Unity conference today.
McCain defends Kerry
Also Wednesday, Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry’s military service “dishonest and dishonorable” and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.
The White House declined.
“It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,” McCain told the Associated Press, comparing the anti-Kerry ad to tactics he faced in his 2000 GOP primary battle against Bush.