Under Attack by Rivals, Kerry Keeps His Focus on Bush

[Feanorcurufinwe]

Fighting for new victories in a set of Feb. 3 primaries and caucuses, Mr. Kerry sought to avoid getting detoured from his main mission: presenting himself as the best alternative to Mr. Bush, whose record he attacked on the Iraq war and on veterans' issues. "There are 99 words in the State of the Union address about steroid drug use in sports; the word `veteran' — it doesn't appear once," he said at a veterans' rally here in South Carolina, a state with a large population of military dependents and retirees.

And Mr. Kerry told reporters that Republicans were "scared stiff about" his candidacy. "That's why they are sending their attack dogs out," he said, referring to criticism of his Senate record on national security issues by Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

<snip>

Mr. Kerry appeared with his biggest-name South Carolina supporters: Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Representative James E. Clyburn, and Alex Sanders, the former president of the College of Charleston. Later, he was also endorsed by Don Fowler, the former Democratic national chairman. It was former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, who delivered the most scathing attack on President Bush on behalf of Mr. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran. "We need a real deal, like John Kerry, not a raw deal, like what's in the White House now," Mr. Cleland said, as his voice fell nearly to a whisper. "We need somebody who felt the sting of battle — not someone who didn't even complete his tour stateside in the Guard."

<snip>

Mr. Hollings acknowledged that South Carolina remained Bush country as of now, but said Mr. Kerry could change that. He recalled that during the Reagan administration, when he was working on the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation to cut federal deficits, "when the Democratic leadership walked away, I went to Chris Dodd of Connecticut and John Kerry of Massachusetts, the `liberal from Massachusetts.' And he not only willingly laid his life on the line in Vietnam, but he was willing to lay his political life on the line in Washington. Don't give me that stuff about `liberal from Massachusetts.' "

Mr. Kerry also picked up the endorsements of the 700,000-member Communication Workers of America, the third and largest national union to support him so far; the Michigan Education Association, which represents 157,000 teachers in Michigan; and the 34,000-member Local 951 of the grocery workers' union, Michigan's largest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/politics/campaign/31KERR.html?ex=1076130000&en=93604f3040f3bb30&ei=5062