Bush Lays Claim to Edwards Country

RALEIGH, N.C. —  Claiming the home state of the new Democratic vice presidential candidate as his own turf, President Bush on Wednesday brushed aside the political threat posed by Sen. John Edwards and asserted that he would again sweep the South because he shares the region’s values.

Bush, abandoning the cordial tone he struck when Edwards was named to the Democratic ticket a day earlier, suggested the one-term North Carolina senator could not measure up to the stature of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Asked to compare Edwards with his own No. 2, Bush said: “Dick Cheney can be president.” He then called for the next question, indicating that he considered his case closed.

Bush’s pointed response highlighted a primary line of attack Republicans intend to use against Edwards: that he is too inexperienced to become commander in chief, if necessary.

But Sen. John F. Kerry had a quick retort for Bush’s implicit criticism of Edwards. Referring to Cheney’s image as one of the most powerful vice presidents in U.S. history, the Democratic presidential candidate told a rally in Dayton, Ohio, that Bush “was right that Dick Cheney was ready to take over on Day One, and he did, and he has been ever since, and that’s what we’ve got to change.”

The crowd laughed and cheered.

The president’s trip to the North Carolina capital, for a Republican fundraiser and a visit with some of his federal judicial nominees, was planned well before Kerry chose Edwards as his running mate Tuesday. But it underscored the fluid state of the electoral map in a nation that is closely divided politically.

Democrats contend that Edwards, born in South Carolina and raised in a North Carolina mill town, will help Kerry compete in some Southern states Bush took easily four years ago.

The Kerry campaign Wednesday announced a purchase of television advertising time in North Carolina to introduce the new ticket, which could signal a concerted effort by the Democrats to win the state’s 15 electoral votes. Television stations in the state reported Wednesday night that Bush planned to respond with his own ad.

Kerry and Edwards also will campaign in North Carolina on Saturday.

But Bush dismissed the Democratic ambitions.

“I’m going to carry the South, because the people understand that

Referring to Kerry, Bush added: “I’ll do well in the South this time, because the senator from Massachusetts doesn’t share their values, and that’s the difference in the campaign.”

Some analysts said that along with potentially putting North Carolina in play, Edwards could fuel Democratic challenges to Bush in Louisiana, Florida and Arkansas, and possibly in Virginia and Tennessee. Bush carried them all in 2000, along with every other state that comprised the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Michael C. Munger, a political scientist at Duke University, said Kerry probably would not carry North Carolina unless he won easily nationwide.

But he said that “making Bush have to spread out his defense” in the South could help Kerry make inroads elsewhere.

“It’s a huge strategic advantage for Kerry,” Munger said. “It’s Edwards’ Southern-ness that does it.”

Polls show that Bush’s position in North Carolina has eroded somewhat since he took the state by 13 percentage points over Democrat Al Gore in 2000. A survey last month by the Raleigh News & Observer found that Bush’s statewide edge over Kerry was 5 percentage points, and that the race would tighten even more with Edwards on the ticket.

Bush’s effort to win North Carolina a second time also could be complicated by a tight race for the Senate seat that Edwards is vacating.

Democrat Erskine Bowles, who was a White House chief of staff under President Clinton, is running against Rep. Richard Burr, a five-term Republican from the northwestern corner of the state. With control of the Senate at stake in the fall elections, both parties expect to spend millions of dollars in their bids for the open seat. The push to elect Bowles could help energize Democratic voters.

Burr, who rode with Bush on Air Force One on Wednesday, contended that Edwards was unpopular in North Carolina, in part because he had been absent from the Senate for much of the last two years while waging his own presidential bid.

“George Bush is going to win this state,” Burr spokesman Doug Hay said. “We’re happy to campaign with the president whenever possible. If Kerry and Edwards are going to be in the state, we welcome that. Kerry’s a Massachusetts Democrat. That’s not going to play well.”

While Bush stressed his record on tax cuts and increased military funding in his remarks on “values,” analysts said presidential politics in North Carolina revolved around a mixture of economic and social issues.

The fast-growing state is home to high-technology business centers. It is also a tobacco-growing and cigarette-manufacturing center; many leading state Republicans and Democrats are pushing Congress and the Bush administration for a federal buyout of the quota system that regulates tobacco growers. Textile manufacturers, historically a key part of the state economy, have shed jobs in recent years, fanning anger in some quarters about competition from global trade.

With many military families living here, national security and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are a prime concern.

Meanwhile, opposition to abortion and gay marriage is prevalent among the state’s large population of Christian conservatives. Kerry and Edwards could face challenges explaining their stances on those issues, as well as on affirmative action.

Along Bush’s motorcade route in an affluent Raleigh suburb, scores lined up on a sweltering morning to glimpse a national campaign that until now has largely bypassed their state.

Todd Lesley, 42, a loan broker and Republican, said Edwards was not up to the job of vice president. But he acknowledged that the former trial lawyer had considerable political skills.

“He schmoozes a lot of people,” Lesley said. “He’s ... a master at that. I’m concerned the country’s going to fall in love with the guy. The pretty face, the looks and all that -- superficial.”

Nell Allen, 53, a Democrat who works for a land conservation group, toted a sign that read “One America: Kerry & Edwards.”

“I think Bush has made a whole bunch of mistakes in Iraq,” Allen said. “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and I highly object to that.”

Bush’s comments to reporters about the campaign followed a private meeting with three North Carolinians whom he has nominated to the federal bench. He criticized Senate Democrats for blocking their confirmations.

Bush then addressed a party fundraiser that the Republican National Committee said drew $2.35 million. From Raleigh, Bush flew to Pontiac, Mich., north of Detroit, to meet with six of his Michigan judicial nominees who also are being blocked in the Senate.