Kerry talks health care, blasts Bush during address to AARP

Dan Kulin and Kirsten Searer

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.

As the presidential campaign heads down the home stretch toward Election Day, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry took a message of saving Social Security, and improving health care and the economy to a supportive crowd of more than 10,000 AARP members Thursday in Las Vegas.

Speaking before a key demographic group in a battleground state, Kerry gave an almost 45-minute address that touched on nearly every hot topic this election season, and also noted that he and the AARP stood apart on the recent Medicare reform bill.

Kerry said that while he and AARP leadership have the same goal in mind, he felt the plan worked out with President Bush was forced upon them.

"AARP tried to work with the president but in the end the president was not working for America's seniors," Kerry said.

"And maybe that's why today he won't show up to defend his bill," he said, prompting loud applause from the crowd.

Bush was invited to the AARP annual meeting, but sent his wife instead. The president was in Las Vegas Thursday morning, speaking at a campaign rally at UNLV.

Nevada has seen its share of visits from presidential candidates -- along with their wives, extended family members and seemingly anyone else willing to stump for them on the trail.

Thursday, however, was a day for the history books as both candidates and their wives were in the state following Wednesday night's final presidential debate in Arizona.

"These are tremendous blitzes by both parties in trying to make their presence felt and their message heard," state archivist Guy Rocha said.

Both the president and his wife were in Las Vegas and then spoke in Northern Nevada Thursday afternoon -- the first lady at a Lake Tahoe fundraiser, the president in Reno. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, also spoke in Reno on Thursday.

It's a safe bet that the candidates or their family members will be back in Nevada before the November election -- Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth Edwards, already is slated to speak in Carson City and Elko on Sunday. But campaign officials are reluctant to say how much this string of presidential visits might affect the race here, which has been seen as tight in the polls.

"Clearly whenever voters can hear directly from President Bush and directly from Mrs. Bush it's a positive thing from our perspective," Bush spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said. "We like our position in this race right now, but we aren't taking anything for granted."

Visits also energize volunteers who then participate in phone banks and go door-to-door, she said.

Kerry's spokesman in Nevada, Sean Smith, said the campaign noticed a "big spike" after Kerry spent two days in Nevada as part of the Believe in America tour in August. But it's difficult to quantify how much a one-day stop affects the polls, he said.

The Kerry campaign is scheduling visits to show Nevadans that the candidate cares about the state, Smith said.

"We think it's a state we can win," Smith said, pointing out that Bush won Nevada in 2000. "We see an opportunity to pick up a state. On the other side, they see a state slipping away from them, so it's a different motivation."

The only way to pin down the effect of a presidential visit would be to take a poll the day before a candidate came and then after he left, said pollster and registered Democrat Kent Oram.

Still, Oram, a longtime political consultant, said he's astounded at the attention Nevada is receiving.

"Obviously it's a battleground state, everybody's worried about it," Oram said. "That's why it's pretty much unheard of to have this much attention in little old Nevada."

In fact, Rocha said, Nevada's first presidential campaign stop happened in November 1932, when Herbert Hoover came to Elko to broadcast a radio show. The next visit from a sitting president came from Harry Truman in 1948, John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Then, no sitting president visited until Ronald Reagan, Rocha said.

That was partly because Nevada had just three electoral votes until 1984, and four until this year. But now that the state could tip a divided nation, things are different.

"For the first time in the state of Nevada in 140 years, Nevada is in play and were getting attention by presidential candidates -- presidents, vice presidents, vice presidential candidates, families, generals, politicians, documentary producers," Rocha said. "We've never seen anything like this."

But, the archivist said, this could be Nevada's biggest tango if future elections aren't as close and Nevada isn't as important.

"I hope everybody's enjoying themselves," he said. "There's no guarantee in the foreseeable future that five electoral votes are going to be treated as they are now."

But for now, the candidates are coming.

During his Thursday speech to the AARP members at the Sands Expo and Convention Center the Massachusetts senator hammered away on the economy, saying that under Bill Clinton the nation added 23 million jobs and boosted the average family income by $7,200. But Kerry said Bush has left the middle-class behind, while claiming that everything is OK.

"Do we want four more years of a president who gives more to those who already have the most and tells a struggling middle class that everything's fine?" Kerry asked.

"No!" the audience replied.

Kerry said that under Bush, jobs have gone oversees, "corporate profits are up but family income is down," and college tuition and Medicare premiums are also up.

Kerry's talk about jobs struck a chord with Reuben Greene, 75, of Richmond, Va.

"The exporting of jobs is bad and he wants people to get back to work," Greene said.

"Jobs," his wife, Lillian, said. "I think that's what has people uneasy now, the outsourcing."

"Jobs are important and then if you're around long enough health care is too," Reuben Greene said, adding that he likes Kerry's health care plan.

Kerry also stirred supporters when he spoke of Bush's old plan to partially privatize social security, and promised he would never do that.

"I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut benefits, and I will not raise the retirement age," he said. "Because when you've worked for a lifetime, America owes you what you've earned."

Health care was also an important issue for many at the speech.

"As the richest country in the world we ought to be able to provide health insurance to all our children," said Mary Jo Malone, 54, of Columbia, Mo.

Kerry also talked about his plan to offer the health insurance available to senators and members of congress to the general public.

And early in his speech, took a shot at the president when he said that in Las Vegas today "the best bet is single-deck blackjack and the worst bet is Bush's health plan."

Undecided voter Christy Lovell, 51, a software salesperson from Mililani, Hawaii, said she wanted to hear more about Kerry's health care plan.

Both candidates appeal to some of her concerns, but she's also not sure which candidate to believe when they accuse each other of misleading the public, she said.

"It's a scary proposition to change presidents in the middle of a war. But also we're so far in debt as a country," Lovell said.

After the speech, Lovell said that Kerry "made some good points."

But I want more of an explanation on the health care. How would it work?" she asked.

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