Kerry speaks on Seattle waterfront

By Times staff and wire services

TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Thousands turned out to see the Democratic presidential candidate at the Seattle waterfront this morning.

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"There's no possible way for America to drill its way out of this predicament," said Kerry, who called for more federally funded energy research. "We have to invent our way out of this predicament, and we need a president who understands this.

"As long as we're dependent on oil from other nations … we are not masters of our own destiny, we are not independent, we are not free." he said.

Kerry, in Seattle for two days, attacked President Bush for what he called "the most arrogant, inept foreign policy in the history of our nation," and promised that if he were elected, "no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to America's dependence upon oil in the Middle East."

Roger Newman, 52, from Redmond, and his daughter Jennifer, 20, a student at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, were braving the rain at Pier 62 to see Kerry.

	TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has a laugh as he is flanked by Sen. Maria Cantwell, right, and Congressman Adam Smith.

"It's a matter of the country going in the wrong direction," said Jennifer Newman, who is preparing to vote in her first presidential election.

"I don't like the way the neo-conservatives have brought the country to the right," her father said. "Kerry will bring it to the center."

The Kerry campaign said more than 4,000 tickets to the event had been given out, and the line of people coming to attend stretched several blocks along Alaskan Way.

Paul Sanders, a photographer from Bainbridge Island, said, "I thought it would be a way to show support and get a sense of what Senator Kerry is like in person."

"To me, I think we live in such an image age, a media age, I'm sure some of the greatest presidents would not have been elected now," he said. "I don't know if Lincoln would have been good on television."

After visiting Portland yesterday, Kerry's new Boeing 757 campaign plane arrived in Seattle last night. In brief remarks to reporters, the presumptive Democratic nominee put the focus on the loss of Boeing jobs here, KING5 news reported.

"We ought to be standing up and fighting for Boeing workers, because they've been undercut by Airbus and the administration has never stood up and fought the way they ought to," Kerry said.

After this morning's speech at Pier 62, Kerry is scheduled to spend the day in Seattle with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, celebrating their wedding anniversary.

Tonight at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle, Kerry is to attend a campaign fundraiser expected to raise $2 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party, an amount that organizers say will probably break the region's record for money raised at a single event.

Kerry is on a three-day campaign swing in Oregon and Washington, two presidential battleground states that also have some of the nation's highest gas prices.

"What about the Saudi-George Bush gasoline tax that we're now paying because OPEC wasn't pressured to lower the prices by producing more?" Kerry asked Tuesday during a stop in Portland, Ore. "They could've produced more before now. And America's paying an enormous penalty as a result of that and all of our economy gets hurt as a result of that."

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Kerry has opposed legislation that would reduce dependence on foreign oil.

Kerry opposes Bush's energy bill in part because he does not support drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While Bush wants to tap domestic sources of oil, Kerry wants to divert temporarily oil being used to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and bring it to market to help reduce prices. He says his administration would demand that other oil-producing nations increase supply.

Kerry, speaking the day after Bush sought to rally international support in Iraq, also said he has "a level of trust" with foreign leaders that would allow him to repair relationships in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

Kerry, noting his nearly 20 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he has met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah and Jordan's King Abdullah II, among others in the region.

"I have a relationship that I believe if I were president, I could sit down with them with a level of trust that would allow us to begin an entirely new dialogue," he said.

Schmidt said Kerry creates a false impression by repeatedly referring to his relationships with foreign leaders as if they were ongoing.

"During this campaign, John Kerry has repeatedly referenced his support from mysterious, unnamed foreign leaders that he says he meets in restaurants in New York City," Schmidt said. "But his assertions seem to lack any basis in fact."

Staff writer Beth Kaiman, the Associated Press and KING5 news contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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