Bush marks a small-town Fourth
ALTOONA, Pa. — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney celebrated the Fourth of July in all-American fashion, looking for votes Sunday in neighboring battleground states.
Using a two-day bus tour through suburban and rural areas of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania to shed his dour image and shore up sagging approval ratings, a tie-less Cheney tossed out the first pitch at a minor-league baseball game in Altoona and attended a barbecue with firefighters.
He was joined by his 10-year-old granddaughter, Kate Perry, who donned an Altoona Curves jersey and gave a throw of her own.
“I think Kate has a future in baseball,” Cheney said.
In Charleston, W.Va., President Bush led a July Fourth celebration by telling thousands of flag-waving supporters that America remains “the best hope for all mankind.”
Both appearances — with small-town backdrops in conservative areas — came as the president’s re-election campaign is honing a new line of attack on presumed Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry: that he is out of step with mainstream “traditional values.”
Campaign officials said Sunday that Kerry invited the assault by declaring last week that he holds “conservative values,” and that the theme would play out with increasing intensity over the summer in television ads and speeches by Bush and Cheney.
Cheney continued to attack Kerry on Sunday, again listing the Massachusetts senator’s votes against abortion limits, gun rights and a ban on flag burning, while the presence of the vice president’s wife, Lynne, and his granddaughter offered reminders of the overall theme.
“It is important that we teach our children and our grandchildren the ideals and the values on which our great country was founded,” Lynne Cheney told a rally early Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Bush’s visit to West Virginia was his ninth since he took office and was the second time that he had appeared in the state for the July Fourth holiday. .
The president’s excursion to Charleston got off to a false start, as Air Force One developed an engine problem just before takeoff and a backup plane had to be pressed into duty.
The delayed departure from an airport near Camp David, the presidential retreat in the western Maryland mountains, forced the cancellation of Bush’s scheduled attendance at an 11 a.m. service at the Bible Center Church in Charleston.
As he hailed the sacrifices of West Virginia’s troops, Bush explained that their far-flung deployments in the war against terrorism were necessary so that “we do not have to face (terrorists) here at home.” Of terrorists, Bush added: “They are running out of places to hide; they know their cause is failing; they know that time is against them.”
Cheney, for his part, appeared at ease Sunday with the kind of personalized politics that he previously disdained but that aides said would become increasingly important in a tight race.