Bush and Kerry take on economy and Iraq in Labor day rallies

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Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, fresh from a campaign revamp and slipping in the polls, tried to focus on the economy but instead offered new criticism of the Iraq war, while President George W Bush touted his tax reform.

On Labor Day, once the kickoff day for what has become the marathon US presidential campaign season, the two candidates headed out for rallies in the battleground states of Missouri, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

Kerry tried to focus on domestic issues at a neighbourhood meeting in Canonsburg, but members of the audience raised Iraq.

Kerry called the invasion "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and said his goal was to withdraw US troops in a first White House term.

Some senior Democrats have advised Kerry to focus on economic issues as he tried to reinvigorate his campaign with an offensive in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, after polls showed him trailing the Republican president by double digits.

Polls show Bush's popularity with voters is particularly strong on Iraq and issues of national security, while Kerry poses more of a challenge on health care, the economy and jobs, generally the centrepiece of Labor Day campaigning.

At a later Labor Day rally in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, another swing state, Bush was to tout his proposal to overhaul the US tax code, as well as recent stronger employment figures.

He said the federal tax code favoured special interests and was too complicated. "Sitting down to do your taxes shouldn't require wading through more than one million words-worth of complicated rules and regulations," Bush said in prepared remarks.

Kerry countered that the United States is down 1.65 million private-sector jobs since Bush took office in January 2001. In a report issued on Labor Day, his campaign said newly created jobs pay on average US$8848 per year less than those lost.

His campaign also denounced the shipping overseas of US jobs. "Any job that go overseas is not only wrong for America's workers, it's bad economically," Kerry economic policy adviser Jason Furman told reporters.

In Racine, West Virginia, Kerry assailed Bush's record, repeatedly telling a Labor Day rally the "W" in Bush's name stood for "wrong -- wrong choices, wrong judgment, wrong priorities, wrong direction for our country" on everything from jobs to Iraq.


Bush accused Kerry of vacillating on Iraq after bringing in new advisers.

"After voting for the war but against funding it, after saying he would have voted for the war even knowing everything we know today, my opponent woke up this morning with new campaign advisers and yet another new position," Bush said in his remarks.

Kerry moved longtime adviser John Sasso from the Democratic National Committee to a top job inside his campaign.

Sasso will travel with Kerry through the Nov 2 election. Several ex-aides to President Bill Clinton also were added recently, including former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson, a former senior White House aide.

A Kerry campaign spokesman said it was simply an expansion of staff for the final two-month race.

- REUTERS