REPUBLICANS HAVE BIG DAY IN JACKSON

JACKSON -- The Republican Party had a big day in the area Saturday as a group of veterans endorsed the Bush-Cheney presidential ticket on one side of town and U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft announced on the other side of town that Congress approved anti-meth legislation he authored.

Vietnam veteran and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient John Baker encouraged Missouri veterans to vote for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the presidential election.

Baker spoke to a small group of 11 veterans who attended the announcement at the Brookside Park veterans memorial.

Baker, who received the medal of honor in 1968 from President Lyndon B. Johnson said military morale and wages are low under the current Democrat administration.

"Al Gore is not for the great veterans of this country. He's against them," he said. "We need to change the way things are going to be. Bush and Cheney can do it for this great country."

Paul Summers, a retired command sergeant major in the Missouri National Guard said he already had planned to vote Republican in November.

"The military was my life. I'm very knowledgeable of the requirements to keep the military strong," Summers said.

"The important thing is that our forces be equipped and manned for an immediate conflict. When the military is properly respected...staffed with personnel and equipped with all the armament they need to sustain themselves, the morale will go up."

Meanwhile, Ashcroft told area public safety officials that his bipartisan anti-methamphetamine plan received Congressional approval as part of major children's health legislation.

The legislation, he said, will provide additional funds for fighting meth production and trafficking and increases the penalties for making or ingesting meth.

"Local law enforcement officers must have the resources they need to battle the meth crisis in Missouri and protect our communities from this dangerous drug," Ashcroft said.

"These new resources will put us in a better position to combat the meth production and distribution that has made Missouri notorious for this dangerous drug."