A 'Dream Ticket' Talks of Economic Realities

[papau]

rolling back the tax cuts benefiting Americans making more than $200,000 a year and using the revenue to expand the availability of college, healthcare and other programs - the other half of the campaign



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dems8jul08.story

A 'Dream Ticket' Talks of Economic Realities
By Matea Gold and Mark Z. Barabak Times Staff Writers July 8, 2004

DAYTON, Ohio — Sens. John F. Kerry and John Edwards set out on the presidential campaign trail Wednesday, casting themselves as a pair of can-do optimists who would stand up for Americans facing a middle-class economic squeeze.

Picking up where Edwards' own White House bid left off, an exuberant Kerry embraced the smiling demeanor and some of the populist rhetoric of his running mate as the two men and their families made appearances in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, three battleground states.

"This is a dream ticket," Kerry boasted in Dayton, where thousands of people crowded along the banks of the Miami River to see the new Democratic team. "We've got better ideas, a better vision for our country, a better sense of what's happening to average people in America and how difficult life is, a better sense of the real priorities of our nation."

"And," he adding jokingly, "we've got better hair" — a reference to the ribbing both candidates have fielded for their luxuriant manes.<snip>

The phrase "play by the rules" (and middle-class still loses to rich) was frequently used in 1992 by Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, who made the economic pressures faced by average Americans a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Kerry in recent weeks has increasingly echoed Clinton's rhetoric. Then, as now, the economy was growing, but at a pace that failed to translate into widespread feelings of well-being.<snip>

Edwards spoke to those anxieties more forcefully than any other candidate in the Democratic primaries, with his mantra about two Americas divided by class, race, and economic opportunity. On Wednesday, he joined Kerry in giving voice to those concerns.<snip>