Va. governor stumps for Kerry in Cape

American workers are losing out in the Bush administration, Virginia's first-term governor told Democratic supporters during a campaign stop in Cape Girardeau on Monday on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Gov. Mark Warner and Missouri lieutenant governor candidate Bekki Cook of Cape Girardeau criticized Bush and praised Kerry during a meeting with about 50 area Democrat supporters, union leaders and carpenters union apprentices at the Carpenters Union Hall Local 1770 at 815 Enterprise St.

Warner, who also campaigned for Kerry in Sikeston, Poplar Bluff and Kennett over the weekend, said more than 1 million jobs nationwide have been lost during the Bush administration, including many in Missouri.

Cook said Missouri has lost 39,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush took office.

Warner criticized the Bush administration's financial policies. "This president has taken a $236 billion surplus and turned it into the biggest deficit in the nation's history," he said.

Warner said the nation would do a better job of fighting terrorism if Kerry were elected president because Kerry would seek to involve all civilized nations in the war on terrorism rather than depend solely on American soldiers and American tax money to do the job.

"We all agree America has to stay strong in the world," the Virginia governor said.

Warner said Americans need to elect Kerry to deal with the health-care crisis. "We are the wealthiest country in the world and we have 45 million Americans who don't have health insurance," he said. "It is a sin."

Warner said the Bush administration has ignored the nation's health-care problem. "What we've got right now is benign neglect in health care," he said.

"I think the big problem is that the jobs are going overseas," said Terry Shackles, a business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union Local 1 in Cape Girardeau.

"They are eliminating the middle class people of this country," he told Warner and Cook. "We can't afford another four years of what we've got."

mbliss@semissourian.com

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