Don't support Bush? Don't try to attend rally

John Kerry is expected to be in the Valley again before Election Day.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Unless you are a Bush-Cheney supporter or are pretty good at telling a white lie, chances are you're not going to get a ticket to attend the president's rally Wednesday.
Local Republicans are distributing tickets to the event at three locations until 9 p.m. today. There are 10,000 tickets to be distributed for President Bush's first official campaign stop in the Mahoning Valley as a sitting president.
Bush will speak about 12:50 p.m. Wednesday at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna, near the Winner Aviation hangar. He will be in the area for about one hour to 90 minutes, and has events planned for later that day in Findlay and Detroit. The doors open at 9 a.m.
To get a ticket, a person must show a photo ID, said Mark Munroe, the Bush-Cheney coordinator in Mahoning County. To get into the event, a person needs a ticket and a photo ID, he said.
Recruiting volunteers
The Bush-Cheney campaign is also using the ticket distribution as a way to recruit volunteers, Munroe said.
"We ask people if they'd be willing to volunteer for Election Day weekend," he said. "You don't have to volunteer to get a ticket."
But you have to be a Bush supporter, Munroe said.
"If people come in and ask for a ticket, and we don't recognize them, we ask them if they support the president," he said. "This is an event for supporters of President Bush. If they say they support Kerry, they'd be denied a ticket."
Tickets, which are free, are available at the Mahoning GOP headquarters at 621 Boardman-Canfield Road in Boardman, the Trumbull County Bush-Cheney headquarters in the Eastwood Mall in Niles, and the Salem Republican headquarters at 230 E. State St. in Salem.
Democratic response
Brendon Cull, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Coordinated Campaign, said all rallies for the Democratic ticket of U.S. Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards are open to everyone. Also, at events with limited seating, the Kerry-Edwards campaign makes an effort to give tickets to undecided voters, he said.
"This is just typical," Cull said of the GOP-only Bush rally. "John Kerry is running to be president of the entire country. When President Bush comes to Ohio he comes only when he can speak in front of a controlled crowd. When we do a rally, anyone can get a ticket. Our goal is reach out to as many people as possible. This is a fundamental difference between the two campaigns."
Bush held a roundtable-style discussion on community health care centers at Youngstown State University on May 25, but that was an official presidential visit, and not a campaign stop. That meant taxpayer dollars paid for the cost of the event and Bush's travel expenses. The crowd of about 200 people at that event were largely Republicans, doctors and health care officials.
Kerry, Moore to visit
Kerry plans to return to the Mahoning Valley, one of the most Democratic areas in the key presidential battleground state of Ohio, for a rally sometime before Election Day, Cull said. Kerry has visited the Valley five times this year.
In addition, Michael Moore, producer/director of the controversial anti-Bush film "Fahrenheit 9/11," is scheduled to speak in the Mahoning Valley at noon Thursday.
A location will be announced later, according to Anthony Caldwell of the SEIU District 1199 office.
Moore has been on a 60-city "Slacker Uprising Tour" in an effort to get traditional nonvoters to the polls next Tuesday.
skolnick@vindy.com