"Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Saturday faulted President Bush for presiding over the loss of millions of jobs while offering tax cuts.

“3.1 million of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs in the last two and a half years,” Kerry told 200 Democrats at a Charlottesville Ice Park fund-raiser for a statewide party leadership political action committee.

“We were given a tax cut and told that that tax cut would produce a million jobs. We lost 2 million jobs,” Kerry said. “They come back with another tax cut and say to people, ‘Well, we’ve got to let this trickle down.’ Well, everybody I’m meeting is kind of tired of being trickled on by George Bush economics because this is not coming back to the job creation that we had under Bill Clinton.”

State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, introduced Kerry, who delivered a campaign address blasting Bush and promising that Democrats can do a better job.

The event raised about $25,000 for Deeds’ Rough Mountain Leadership PAC.

Deeds said the money will go to help a dozen or more Democratic candidates for the General Assembly across Virginia. He called Kerry “impressive [and] substantive” but did not endorse the fourth-term Massachusetts senator, who is one of nine candidates running in Virginia’s Feb. 10 Democratic presidential primary.

Kerry spoke for about 20 minutes and was interrupted numerous times by applause. He spoke earlier Saturday to labor leaders in Tyson’s Corner and left Charlottesville by private jet at 2:30 p.m. to speak to military veterans in Norfolk and a Democratic Party dinner in Roanoke.

A decorated Vietnam veteran, Kerry said in Charlottesville that Bush has broken most of his campaign promises on the economy and on foreign policy.

“I learned something about aircraft carriers for real in the Gulf of Tonkin,” said Kerry, a Navy veteran with a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three purple hearts from his service in Vietnam.

“And I can’t wait to remind this president and his friends that having a skilled Navy pilot land you on an aircraft carrier in a borrowed suit does not make up for a failed economic policy, walking back on the environment, abandoning children and going back on the promises to this nation,” Kerry said. “We are going to hold him accountable in this race.”

Kerry said Bush has turned his back on the efforts of 160 nations to deal with scientifically proven global warming, turned his back on North Korea until a nuclear weapons crisis developed and ignored AIDS in Africa “until it’s politically convenient to make a five-day, drive-by trip.”

“I am going to be the president who restores … arts and music and dance and theater and science” to education in America, the senator said.

Kerry said he would challenge Americans to move toward alternative and renewable energy sources and to end the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

In a 20-minute interview after his speech, Kerry praised Gov. Mark R. Warner, and he defended his vote in favor of authorizing the use of force in Iraq but criticized Bush for lacking a plan “to win the peace.”

“I would have designed a very clear method, should it have come to conflict, for winning the peace,” Kerry said.

“I think they clearly didn’t have a plan. They were cavalier about the aftereffect and, frankly, misjudged it, misjudged the population and misjudged the complexity — against all of our warnings, may I add.”

Kerry, 59, said a proper policy would have been to show patience and leadership “in bringing together an international coalition and not been in such a rush.”

He said the Bush administration misled Congress and the American public with false information about Iraqi orders for their troops to use chemical weapons, about likely military use of unmanned drone airplanes with chemical weapons and about an attempt to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger.

“They did not tell us the truth with a number of the items they laid in front of us,” Kerry insisted.

He called Warner a friend who “won a very interesting race with a very thoughtful message, and I think he’s a very capable guy. I have great respect for him.”

“One of the things I liked about Mark Warner is that Mark knew how to create jobs and wealth and help encourage business to be able to do what it does best, which is to create new products and sell them and grow our economy,” Kerry said.

“I care a lot about entrepreneurial activity and effort. I want our party to understand that you have to create jobs and you have to work with people to do it.”

Kerry said Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary “is an important primary now. It’s an early primary in February — February 10, a key day. I think Virginia can have an impact.”

He said he would be revisiting the state a number of times before the primary." (Bob Gibson, The Daily Progress, August 17, 2003)

Contact Bob Gibson at (434) 978-7243 or bgibson@dailyprogress.com.