Bush woos Democrats in lead-up to inauguration

HOUSTON - Reaching out to blacks who voted overwhelmingly against him, United States President-elect George W. Bush yesterday vowed to improve public schools as a way to realise Martin Luther King jun's dream of racial equality.

Speaking on the holiday marking the slain civil rights leader's birth, Bush recalled King's struggle to win equal rights for blacks and said "as President my job will be to listen not only to the successful but also to the suffering."

Bush delivered the message in a speech at Kelso Elementary School, a predominantly black public school set in a rundown Houston neighbourhood of small one-storey homes, many of them with peeling paint and bars over their windows.

"The dream of equality is empty without excellent schools, schools that stress reading and discipline and character and decency," Bush told about 100 people at Kelso, whose students are roughly two-thirds black and one-third Hispanic.

"We're ready to bring a spirit of reform and results to public schools all across the country," Bush said, standing beside his African-American nominee for Education Secretary, Houston schools superintendent Roderick Paige.

Five days before taking the oath of office, Bush is still trying to soothe bitterness among Democrats about his contested victory over Vice-President Al Gore.

Some in the audience were sceptical Bush would succeed in courting blacks - fewer than one in 10 voted for him.

"It's an attempt. I think it's going to take more than this one visit," said Calvin Milton, aged 50, a fourth grade teacher, who voted for Gore.

Bush made education reform a cornerstone of his campaign, unveiling a $US47.6 billion ($109.14 billion) plan to increase classroom safety, give states greater control over schools and teach all children to read by the third grade.

His education proposals have stirred up Democrats, particularly his plan to give $US1500 vouchers to the parents of students in public schools that fail to measure up to standards, allowing them to send their children elsewhere.

Aside from highlighting his education proposals, Bush did not cite any other policies to help minorities.

In his final week at the White House, President Bill Clinton on Monday released a 26-page blueprint for completing the nation's "unfinished business" of mending race relations.

While some black leaders welcomed the ideas - which include banning racial profiling and shrinking the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine offences - they regretted Clinton made the proposals so late in his term.

After his visit to Houston, the President-elect returned to his ranch.

Bush flies to Washington tomorrow for the parties and events that precede his inauguration at noon on Saturday (6 am Sunday New Zealand time).

Despite Bush's pledge to be a "uniter, not a divider" there are signs he will have trouble on Capitol Hill, where Republican and Democratic senators are already fighting over two of his Cabinet nominations: John Ashcroft as Attorney-General and Gale Norton for Interior Secretary.

Senate confirmation hearings for Ashcroft open today with a key question being whether the former US Senator from Missouri would enforce the federal laws and regulations he has openly denounced.

During six years in the Senate, Ashcroft frequently opposed measures - from ones in support of abortion rights to affirmative action to gun control - that he would be responsible for upholding as the nation's top lawman.

Civil rights groups, angry over alleged irregularities in Florida's vote, plan to stage Inauguration Day protests in Washington, as do opponents of the death penalty and Bush's anti-abortion stand. Activists said they were seeking an emergency court order to ensure they could organise protests along Bush's presidential parade route despite unprecedented security precautions.

Clinton is to make a farewell televised address to the nation on Friday. Yesterday he received a new limousine for his final few days in office.

- REUTERS

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