Catching us up from the end of last week, at least 40,000 showed up for a rally for Sen. John Kerry Friday, Hal Bernton of The Seattle Times reports. At least 65,000 showed up for the final Phish concert near here, in Coventry, Vt. Does that mean Phish is the frontrunner in the presidential election?
Probably not.
Kerry is now the favorite in Oregon, a state Al Gore won by a slim margin four years ago.
"Earlier this summer, national polls showed Kerry and Bush locked in a tight race, dead even or separated by a few percentage points. But eight polls taken in Oregon since June indicate that Kerry has pulled ahead in the state race by anywhere from 4 to 9 points. 'Oregon is a battleground state, but it is not a toss-up state,' said Portland pollster Tim Hibbitts, who did not conduct any of the eight tracking polls but said his own unpublished polling data show the same trend."
Also Friday, President Bush called for an end to European government subsidies of Airbus, Boeing's rival.
Seattle Times reporters David Bowermaster and Nick Perry report:
"Following a private meeting with Boeing executives and workers in Seattle, Bush weighed in for the first time on the Airbus subsidy issue, saying he had instructed U.S. Trade Representative Bob Zoellick to take the matter up with the Europeans. Bush was in town for a fund-raiser last night at a business leader's home in Medina, raising an estimated $2.4 million for the Republican National Committee. Earlier in the day, Bush visited a small business conference in Oregon and defended his administration's economic and environmental policies."
"Under a 1992 bilateral agreement between the United States and the European Union, Airbus is permitted to receive government loans worth up to one-third of the cost to develop a new jet. Bush's comments signaled that the U.S. may unilaterally abandon the agreement."
The two Democrats running for governor have put TV ads on the air, Ralph Thomas reports in The Seattle Times:
"Gregoire appears to be going for a wide appeal with a country-girl-makes-good message. Her minute-long ad opens with a shot of her leaning against a horse corral, wearing a jean jacket. The ad then cuts to a black-and-white picture of Gregoire as a girl, sitting atop a pony, wearing a cowgirl hat and bandana. 'I grew up on a small farm in Auburn,' Gregoire says."
You've won our vote Christine! Because everyone knows people who grow up on small farms in Auburn are better qualified to run the state's government than anyone else.
Ron Sims uses his ads to excoriate the Washington tax system:
"'It's no secret that Washington has the worst tax system in the country, with working families paying three to five times more of their income in taxes than the wealthy,'" he says. Sims then talks about his plan, which he says would provide tax relief to 78 percent of families. He mentions two of the key elements of his proposal: getting ride of business taxes and the state portion of the sales tax."
BTC returns to Seattle this week, as his scheme to see Phish and go to the Republican convention turned out to have a significant flaw: the convention is in two weeks, not one, so he'll have to return home. More on the festival later this week, when we'll be publishing our report on it. |
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