Even before the balloons had stopped falling, US President George W. Bush hurried back to the campaign trail yesterday to peddle the main message of his Republican convention speech: that he has the steadiest hand to guide the nation in perilous times.
Accepting his party's nomination for a second term at the Republican convention in New York, Bush told roaring delegates and a national TV audience, "I believe this nation wants steady, consistent, principled leadership and that is why, with your help, we will win this election."
PHOTO: AP
Speaking from a circular stage emblazoned with the presidential seal, Bush asked voters to reject Senator John Kerry's "policies of the past."
"We are on the path to the future -- and we are not turning back," Bush said, unveiling modest new proposals, including steps to tighten high-school testing, encourage investment in poor communities, reduce deficits and expand health care.
For his first post-convention stop, Bush chose the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where he has already visited 33 times. He was to speak at a rally at a minor-league ballpark near Scranton before making appearances at a convention center outside Milwaukee and a park in Iowa, signaling the breakneck pace he plans to keep until Nov. 2.
Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, said the president told him, "I want to come blowing out of the convention and get out there quickly to the country to demonstrate how committed I am to this campaign. I want to be able to wake up early in a battleground state and get at it."
Bush marches into the last 60 days of the campaign locked in a close race with Kerry. America's bitter political divide was even evident on the convention floor. When hecklers disrupted the president's speech, the GOP delegates drowned them out with chants of "Four More Years!"
Thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Manhattan during the convention as they denounced the president's policies and the US death toll in Iraq, which could reach 1,000 by election day.
Undaunted, Bush carried on with tough words for the Democrats, saying Kerry was running on a platform of raising taxes.
"That's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps," he said.
His message was security in a post-Sept. 11 world -- an issue known all too well in New York.
"My fellow Americans, for as long as our country stands, people will look to the resurrection of New York City and they will say: `Here buildings fell, and here a nation rose,'" Bush said.
Kerry wasted no time in rebutting Bush's speech. At a rally in Ohio, Kerry called the president "unfit to lead this nation."
"We'll go out and talk with Americans in towns across Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Michigan," Kerry said. "And because a stronger America begins at home, we'll talk about our plan to create jobs, cut taxes for the middle class, lower health care costs, and make America safer and more secure."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion