Kerry Speaks to New York, Talks Back to Washington

[Freddie Stubbs]

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

enator John Kerry tangled bitterly with President Bush's re-election campaign yesterday over defense, patriotism and political tactics, as he rolled through New York picking up endorsements, raising money and bracing for an advertising onslaught from the president.

It was a day of political pageantry in Harlem, hard-luck labor stories in Queens and fund-raisers on Park Avenue and Central Park West. But Mr. Kerry's two-borough tour was quickly eclipsed by his attacks on Mr. Bush's campaign, and the rapid-response counterattacks by the president's representatives, in what took on the crackle of a tense day in late October.

In the most taut exchange, Mr. Kerry again deflected Republican questions about his votes on Pentagon weapons by calling them thinly veiled attacks on his patriotism. He said the criticism was akin to the way former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a triple amputee from the Vietnam War, was defeated in 2002 after commercials showed his picture and those of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

"They suggested he was weak," Mr. Kerry said. "That's the underlying message of this attack. They did not come to you and say, `This system is a great system and we need this system; John Kerry voted against this system.' "

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/politics/campaign/24KERR.html?pagewanted=print&position=