CONVENTION Protests usher in week for GOP

Democrats are trying to get in some pre-emptive strikes.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
NEW YORK -- Abortion-rights activists and the first Republican delegates descended on President Bush's heavily fortified convention city Saturday as campaign officials said their boss would use the nomination spotlight to defend his hawkish foreign polices and offer a second-term agenda for health care, education and job training.
"He believes it's important for a candidate to talk about what he's done and, most important, where he wants to lead," said adviser Karen Hughes, aboard Bush's campaign bus in Ohio. "The speech is very forward-looking. It talks about what another four years of a Bush presidency would look like."
Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry said most voters won't look kindly on another term for the Republican. "For the last four years, we've had a dark cloud over Washington," Kerry told supporters on an overcast day in Washington state. "We're going to get rid of it on Nov. 2."
With his decorated combat record in question, Kerry said, "I'm in a fighting mood," and a campaign ally chided Bush for serving stateside in the Texas Air National Guard while others fought in Vietnam.
Bush's rebuttal
In an interview, Bush told NBC's "Today" that Kerry "going to Vietnam was more heroic than my flying fighter jets. He was in harm's way and I wasn't. On the other hand, I served my country. Had my unit been called up, I would have gone."
Pre-convention polls showed the race evenly split, though the challenger has lost ground since his convention in Boston a month ago. The four-day Republican convention opens Monday.
Busing through western Ohio, where jobs have been slow to come back in the economic recovery, Bush told rural audiences Saturday that he would work to open foreign markets to U.S. crops and factory goods.
"In order to make sure jobs stay here in Ohio and America, we're going to make sure countries treat us the way we treat them," the president said. "When it comes to trade, our markets are open; they need to open up their markets."
Bush also said he would push Congress to make his first term's tax cuts permanent and said his economic policies were working. The economy has been slow to recover in parts of Ohio, but Bush was welcomed enthusiastically at the town square in Troy and later at a high school in Lima.
Bush campaigned deliberately through battleground states en route to an overwhelmingly Democratic convention city -- fertile ground for protests against his foreign and domestic policies. Thousands of abortion-rights activists marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, 10 abreast in a protest a half-mile long. The night before, 264 people were arrested on disorderly conduct charges in a bicycle protest past Madison Square Garden.
Near ground zero
The convention site is less than five miles from ground zero, where two hijacked planes destroyed the Twin Towers, killing 2,749 people and catapulting the nation into war. Bush's approval ratings soared as he led the nation in mourning, then ordered troops into Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime and begin the search for Osama bin Laden.
The spotlight will be trained on Republicans this week, but Kerry and his surrogates launched a pre-emptive strike against Bush on Saturday.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark called George Bush incompetent and indecisive. And Kerry said the president's administration amounted to little more than a slew of slogans.
Kerry appealed to the party faithful in Washington state to keep working on his behalf.
"This is the most important election of our lifetimes," the Democratic presidential candidate said. "Everything that matters to you is on the line."
Thousands rallied at the Tacoma Dome, where the Massachusetts senator continued to lay out his plans to improve the economy. Kerry promised voters jobs and insurance, saying that affordable health care is not a "goo-goo, do-gooder, wacky kind of idea."
He had spent the last week working to shift the campaign story line from his military service to his plans to help the middle class. But on Saturday, Kerry and the veterans who took the stage with him had some tough talk for those who would doubt his heroism.
"I think it's outrageous that the president of the United States can question the medals and the service and the valor of American veterans who have served," said Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate. "It's offensive against every veteran in this country."
"We say to George Bush, 'Enough is enough,"' Clark said. "You want to match early records of service? Throw it open to the public."
Bush camp's reply
Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt called Clark's comments a baseless attack.
Bush arrives in New York on Wednesday after an eight-state campaign swing. He'll spend one night in New York before bolting for the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Ohio and beyond shortly after accepting the GOP nomination.
Hughes said Bush will argue that the world and the nation are changing rapidly in the new century, forcing U.S. leaders to adapt. While a desire for stability guided foreign policy for decades, "now we recognize that only when our values and beliefs in freedom are able to take hold will we see our security improve."
The domestic terrain is changing, too, with people constantly shifting jobs and women flooding the work force, Hughes said.
"So he'll talk about skills and training and education and portability of things like health care and the ability to own a piece of your retirement."