Bush Keeps Up the Debate

President Bush on Saturday continued to portray Sen. John F. Kerry as a man who would relinquish U.S. sovereignty to foreign powers, arguing that under a “Kerry doctrine,” the Democratic nominee would seek approval from other countries before taking military action.

“I have a different view,” the president said, drawing applause from a supportive crowd of about 2,000 here. “When our country is in danger, the president’s job is not to take an international poll. The president’s job is to defend America.”

Bush was repeating the assertion that he began making Friday, the day after he and the Democratic nominee held their first debate. The president has seized on a comment Kerry made when asked whether he would be willing to launch a preemptive strike, as Bush did in Iraq last year.

Kerry said he would not cede the right to preempt “in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.” But he added, “if and when you do it ... you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people, understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.”

The Republicans said that means Kerry would make U.S. military decisions subject to foreign entities. Bush began using the phrase “Kerry doctrine” while campaigning in Ohio and in a new TV ad released Saturday.

In Washington, Kerry responded to Bush’s comments. He said he would “never cede the security of the United States to any nation or any institution,” but that he believed the U.S. could be stronger when “we lead allies, and when we do what we need to do with other countries.”

Kerry’s campaign produced a television ad that said, “George Bush lost the debate. Now he’s lying about it.”

Bush’s comments about Kerry came while he campaigned here by bus Saturday, his 28th visit as president to Ohio.

Addressing a national convention of homebuilders, the president also asserted that Kerry would have to raise taxes in order to pay for his proposals.

“It makes no sense to tax the job creators as our economy is getting stronger,” he said.

No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio. Bush won Ohio with a less than 4% margin in 2000, and his campaign is taking nothing for granted in the outreach to the Buckeye State.

Bush acknowledged that times had been tough for families here, but said the economy was on the mend. And he extolled the benefits of free trade and less regulation on business.

Directing his remarks to small-business owners in the audience in a state that had lost 230,000 jobs in the last four years, Bush argued that Kerry’s tax repeal plan would raise only $600 billion, leaving a huge “tax gap.”

He added: “Guess who gets to fill the tax gap? You do.”

Kerry has said he would repeal the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest 2% of the population, those earning more than $200,000 a year, in order to expand health insurance coverage, promote education reforms and increase spending on domestic security measures against terrorism.

Recent polls show Bush and Kerry running even in the campaign to win the state’s 20 electoral votes.

The president’s demeanor at the first debate, in which he came across as peevish at times, has been cited as one reason that Kerry, in the view of many analysts, won the debate.

On Saturday, Bush seemed to regain his stride with audiences that were entirely friendly. In remarks to reporters, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove said he thought the presidential race would probably tighten, not because of the debate but “because of the nature of the contest.”

He said Ohio and other Midwestern states remained in play, and that some of the original battleground states -- Arizona, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana -- were now tilting to Bush.

Later in the day, Bush hosted a town hall-style “conversation” in Mansfield, Ohio, on his initiative to expand America’s “ownership society.” In Mansfield, the president reiterated his message that “John Kerry’s economic policies will hurt this economy.”

The format, in which invited participants joined the president on stage to speak of their experiences, is one of Bush’s favorite campaign settings. And it provided him another chance to tune up for Friday’s debate with Kerry, which will be a town hall format hosted by one moderator, ABC’s Charles Gibson.

At the meeting of the homebuilders association’s huge board of directors here in Columbus, several thousand members turned out to hear the president. Shortly before Bush arrived, scores of empty chairs were removed from the ballroom, leaving gaping empty spaces in the hall.

The audience greeted Bush with fervor, amid chants of “Four more years!” Bobby Rayburn, the association president, noted that the housing industry “has achieved unprecedented growth” during Bush’s term, with the country having a 69.2% homeownership rate -- the highest ever.

Before he launched into a discussion of the economy, Bush rebuked Kerry for what he called a “pattern of confusing contradictions” on the Iraq war.

“If America shows weakness or uncertainty in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This is not going to happen on my watch,” he told the homebuilders.

The president criticized Kerry for saying in Thursday night’s debate that he would consult more with foreign leaders, both to restore peace to Iraq and to help wage the war on terrorism. Charging that Kerry would “give foreign governments veto power over national security decisions,” Bush vowed that “our foreign policy decisions will be made in the Oval Office -- not in foreign capitals.”

In his radio address, Bush recited economic indicators that he said showed an economy strongly on the rebound.

“This week brought more evidence that tax relief is helping our entire economy move forward. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3.3% in the second quarter,” he said.

“America’s economy has been growing at rates as fast as any in nearly 20 years. And for 12 consecutive months, our economy has been creating jobs. We’ve added 1.7 million jobs since August 2003, including 107,000 manufacturing jobs since January.”

He also noted that the national unemployment rate was 5.4%, down almost a full point since June 2003 -- below the average rate of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The Kerry campaign disputed Bush’s optimistic picture of the economy, noting for example that only on Friday, 300 workers at Burner Systems International in Mansfield lost their jobs.

Citing figures from the state Department of Jobs and Family Services, the Kerry campaign said that as of August, unemployment in Mansfield stood at 9.7%, and in surrounding Richland County at 7.7%.

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Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.