Bush visits Spokane to stump for Nethercutt

By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
The Associated Press

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The event raised $750,000 for Nethercutt's campaign.

Bush spoke for half an hour to a crowd of about 700 Nethercutt supporters.

"While you are getting them to vote for George, why don't you get them to vote for me as well?" Bush said. "Both of us are going to carry this state."

Also on the platform were Republican gubernatorial contender Dino Rossi and Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne.

Bush never mentioned Murray, a two-term incumbent, by name but said Washington's two Democratic senators stood in the way of his political agenda.

"George wants you to keep your money," Bush said. "I can't say the same for his opponent."

"We need a man in Washington, D.C., who understands something about agriculture," the president added.

The event at the Spokane Convention Center included a $1,000-a plate dinner, plus a smaller event at which contributors who raised $10,000 could have their picture taken with the president.

Bush planned to stay overnight in Washington and address Army troops at Fort Lewis on Friday morning.

"The national Republican leadership knows Sen. Murray is weak," Nethercutt spokesman Alex Conant said earlier. "Washington is a state where Republicans can pick up a seat."
 
It was Bush's first campaign foray this year on behalf of a Senate challenger, said Dan Allen, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Bush lost Washington to Al Gore by 6 points in the bitterly close 2000 election, and his campaign managers feel the state is in play this time. They are right, according to a survey released today by independent pollster Moore Information Inc. of Portland, Ore.

The poll found the race for president is a dead heat in Washington, with President Bush favored by 44 percent, Democrat John Kerry by 45 percent and third-party candidate Ralph Nader by 4 percent. The remaining 7 percent were undecided.

The telephone survey was conducted between June 9-11 among 500 voters in Washington. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Bush was most widely supported in Eastern Washington, while voters in Western Washington were split except for the city of Seattle, where Kerry had a huge lead.

In the Senate race, Murray has a big lead over Nethercutt in polls and fund-raising, and her campaign contends Bush came to jump-start the Spokane congressman's stalled campaign.

"We're not surprised the president is coming to campaign for someone who has been a rubber stamp for his misguided policies," said Alex Glass, a Murray spokeswoman.

"George Nethercutt has yet to say anything positive about what he wants to do for Washington state," Glass said. "The Nethercutt campaign is spinning its wheels."

Murray, who has not formally kicked off her re-election bid, was found in some early polling to possibly have wobbly support.

That prompted a blitz of advertising by Nethercutt and visits by numerous high-profile Republicans, intended to raise the challenger's profile in the Seattle metropolitan area.

Still, a poll released Monday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. showed voters favored Murray by 53 percent, to 34 percent for Nethercutt.

"We've run a great campaign until now, but we need to run an even better campaign to win Nov. 2," Conant conceded.

He dismissed the Mason-Dixon poll, saying voters were not yet paying attention to the Senate race.

"We are focused on fund-raising, uniting the party, and reaching out to opinion makers and leaders," Conant said. "We've had a great deal of success doing all that."

Because Bush's visit to Fort Lewis is considered a nonpolitical event, many of the expenses for his trip to Washington state will be paid by taxpayers.

Nethercutt's campaign will be billed for a few of the costs. Local taxpayers will foot the bill for law enforcement, fire department and street workers who will be paid overtime for their work. Estimates of local costs were not immediately available.