President Bush hailed a slight decline in unemployment Friday as reason for his re-election, evidence the “economy is strong and getting stronger.” Not so, said Sen. John Kerry, countering that the administration’s term will end with a net loss of jobs.

“The president wants you to re-elect him. For what?” Kerry jabbed at the Republican in the White House. “Losing jobs? Building the biggest deficit in American history?”

Bush campaigned across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa, three states he lost in 2000. Kerry worked Ohio, where Bush prevailed in the last election, as the two men began a nine-week fall campaign for the White House.

“There is a clear difference of philosophy in this race. He is for expanding government, I am for expanding opportunity,” Bush said in Moosic, Pa. It was his first appearance after Thursday night’s convention acceptance speech, in which the president pledged to defeat terrorists while helping Americans achieve economic security.

“With the right leadership, this young century will be a liberty century. It’ll be a century of freedom,” he said.

As he had from the convention podium, he omitted mention of the fact that Osama bin Laden remains at large nearly three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Kerry campaigned by bus in Ohio, the most fiercely contested state in this campaign, his rhetoric sharpened in response to days of Republican convention attacks.

The Massachusetts senator said Bush has a “record of failure,” and the GOP convention was designed to mask it with attacks on him and fellow Democrats.

“I will not have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and who misled America into Iraq,” he said.

Kerry received five military medals while serving in Vietnam. Bush served stateside in the National Guard while Vice President Dick Cheney’s five draft-era deferments kept him out of the service.

Bush and Kerry found one thing to agree on during the day, both wishing Bill Clinton a quick recovery from the heart bypass surgery he faces. “He’s is in our thoughts and prayers,” the current president said of his predecessor.

No date was disclosed for the surgery, nor was it clear what impact it would have on Clinton’s plans to campaign for Kerry this fall.

The campaign clash over jobs was triggered by a Labor Department report showing the unemployment rate at 5.4 percent in August, down from 5.5 percent in July. There were 144,000 jobs created, lower than the 150,000 economists had been expecting.

Bush seized on the report as good news. “Overall, we’ve added about 1.7 million new jobs since August of 2003,” he said. He added that the unemployment rate of 5.4 percent was nearly a full point below the rate last summer and below the average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Not surprisingly, Kerry was far less bullish.

“I don’t think this is something to celebrate. I think it’s something to get to work on,” he told a group in Newark, Ohio.

He promised to spur employment by providing tax credits to companies that keep jobs in the United States, reducing health care costs, pursuing research in renewable fuels and investing in science, medicine and other segments of the economy.

“This is the first president in 60 years who is absolutely certain to be running for re-election on Election Day by having lost jobs in America,” he said of Bush.

Bush and Kerry campaigned as Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards reported income of almost $39 million over the decade ending in 2003. Partial tax returns showed Edwards and his wife paid 34.8 percent of their income in taxes during the 10-year span, a total of $13.2 million. They paid 8.6 percent of their income to charity.

Edwards was a plaintiff’s trial lawyer before winning a North Carolina Senate seat in 1998. His wife is a lawyer, but has not practiced since 1996.

Nader, a third candidate who ran in 2000 and is viewed by Democrats as a threat to Kerry’s cause, gained ground during the day in his effort to add his name to state ballots.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled he should be allowed on the state ballot as an independent candidate. Nader earlier failed to place his name before Michigan voters as the Reform Party contender.


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