First Kerry rally energizes party

Friday, March 26, 2004 | 9:43 a.m.

At the first Las Vegas rally for presidential nominee John Kerry, the Democrats weren't the only ones fired up to defeat President Bush.

After four years as a Republican, Jonathan Abbinett, 50, walked into the long, narrow storefront room that will become Kerry's headquarters at Maryland Parkway and Vegas Valley Drive, re-registered as a Democrat and became a Kerry volunteer.

Why?

"President Bush did not keep his promises to veterans," Abbinett, a Vietnam War Army veteran, said Thursday night.

Abbinett said he was disappointed in Bush's actions in the war in Iraq.

"He did not have a plan to win the peace," he said. "There are young soldiers that I trained that are under unnecessary risk."

Abbinett praised Kerry for his military service, and later, his protests of the war in Vietnam.

"John Kerry had courage to go to Vietnam when he didn't have to, and he had even more courage when he came home and told the truth," Abbinett said.

More than anything, Abbinett said, he wants soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East to come home to a clean environment, a healthy economy and with access to education benefits.

"I believe John Kerry will do it," he said.

Democratic party leader Terry Care, also a Vietnam vet, told the crowd of 75 people attending Thursday's meeting that the Bush administration has plans to drop benefits for 500,000 veterans by 2005.

"Nevada is truly a battleground state," Care said of this year's presidential election.

Care and Erin Bilbray are leading Nevada's efforts to elect Kerry in a state Bush won by a razor-thin margin in 2000.

Two years ago when Care was state party chairman, "you couldn't even find us," he said of the Democrats.

Nationwide the Kerry campaign kicks into gear this weekend, Care said. Howard Dean endorsed Kerry on Thursday.

Discontented Democrats who came to the Kerry rally said it was time to take back the state.

"This is the night we begin taking back Nevada on the Democratic vote," said Tom Gallagher, who is challenging Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., for his House seat.