Reply #14: From the Washington Post

[quaoar]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30872-2004Jul31.html

Bush has been appearing in front of almost uniformly supportive crowds, with his campaign or the White House carefully dispensing tickets as a tool for weeding out dissent. But there was no disguising or diverting the pain in Dover, once a flour- and steel-milling center, where Bush's eight-bus caravan passed by rain-soaked residents waving signs such as "We Need Jobs" and "Thanks for Stealing My Daddy's Pension."

Ohio, perhaps the most crucial target for both campaigns, has begun regaining jobs but still has about 200,000 fewer than when Bush won the state by 4 points in 2000. The industrial states' importance was underscored Saturday afternoon when the bus motorcades of Bush and Kerry came within 40 miles of passing each other on Interstate 70 in western Pennsylvania. Bush took a detour to drive through Wheeling, W.Va., where Kerry was scheduled to appear 90 minutes later.

In Dover, Bush's bus, emblazoned "The Heart and Soul of America," was greeted by a barefoot, red-headed girl carrying a poster that said, "My grandpa lost his job! -- your Turn!" Her older sister, wearing flip-flops, brandished one that said, "My grandpa lost his job -- you should too!"

The president's speeches typically portray a robust, recovering economy. But on Saturday, as Bush finished a two-day, four-state bus tour, he personally confronted the human fallout from the heavy job losses of the past four years, which have hurt his popularity in many of the manufacturing towns that are part of his natural base of support.