Kerry hits job losses just as jobs go up. Bad timing.
Bush and Kerry Campaigns Introduce Attack Ads in Swing States
By JIM RUTENBERG - NYT
The campaigns of Senator John Kerry and President Bush said yesterday that they were introducing new confrontational television commercials in swing states, with Mr. Kerry's spot criticizing Mr. Bush on job losses and Mr. Bush's criticizing Mr. Kerry on support of tax increases.
Mr. Bush's campaign aides showed their new spot to reporters yesterday, a day before they had planned to do so and shortly after Mr. Kerry's campaign announced that its new advertisement would begin running in 17 states today. Mr. Bush's commercial is to begin running on Saturday, his aides said.
The Bush campaign's quick announcement was in keeping with its strategy to yield not an inch as Mr. Kerry strives to put it on the defensive. Mr. Kerry was off the campaign trail after shoulder surgery.
The exchange on new spots came on a day when the Media Fund, a Democratic group, also began a new advertising campaign attacking Mr. Bush's $87 billion package to pay for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In Mr. Kerry's new spot, an announcer says, "While jobs are leaving our country in record numbers, George Bush says sending jobs overseas makes sense for America." It goes on to reprise Mr. Kerry's plan to create 10 million jobs.
The advertisement refers to the 2004 economic report to the president from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, which said the short-term pain of overseas job losses because of global trade would be offset by long-term gains to the economy. Though Mr. Bush signed the report, delivered to Congress in February, he has never voiced support for sending jobs overseas.
"The president has been clear and on the record," said Ken Mehlman, Mr. Bush's campaign manager. "His goal is to create jobs in this country; his goal is to keep jobs in this country."
The spot from President Bush asserts that Mr. Kerry "opposed tax relief for married couples 22 times" and "supported higher taxes over 350 times."
Mr. Kerry's campaign said this spot unfairly cherry-picked provisions in tax cut bills proposed by Mr. Bush that Mr. Kerry believed favored the wealthy. Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Kerry's press secretary, said he had voted at least seven times to preserve marriage-penalty relief and had proposed to do so in his economic plan, which includes other tax cuts for the middle class.
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