EVERETT – Sen. John Kerry rolled up his sleeves and talked shop with 600 workers at the Everett Events Center on Friday, promising to protect their jobs, preserve their health care and provide their children with a path to college.
“But I cannot make the rain go away, sorry folks,” said Kerry, who spoke with a scratchy voice. He paused, then added, “There’s a dark cloud hanging over Washington, D.C., too.”
With that the crowd roared and the Democratic candidate for president eased into an 80-minute discussion of his plans and the concerns of the people in the audience.
He framed his campaign to unseat President Bush as a match of two candidates who would make different choices for how to govern at home and lead the world.
Kerry criticized Bush for serving the narrow interests of the wealthiest individuals and biggest businesses, and pledged allegiance to the collective interests of working families.
Standing in the heart of a labor town, that message resonated with the workers who had come to hear him.
“He seems to have an understanding of what we’re going through,” said Lorraine Gibson, of Everett, a laid-off Boeing worker who sat in the front row. “He speaks from the heart. I find him more charismatic than I thought I’d find him.”
Late arrival
Kerry’s Boeing 757 campaign plane touched down 50 minutes late, at 5:15 p.m. Waiting for him at Paine Field was a contingent of the state’s Veterans for Kerry group.
“It’s time to put an adult back in the White House,” said Dennis Mansker, an Olympia veteran, while the plane taxied down the runway.
Kerry arrived at the Everett Events Center by motorcade without incident. Outside the center, Kerry supporters and Bush backers waved signs and shouted slogans. Police estimated the crowd at 2,000. One man holding a Kerry sign was arrested when he punched a man holding a pro-Bush sign.
Inside the conference room, seating was arranged in a square, creating a cube of space from which Kerry, in shirtsleeves and wielding a microphone, addressed the audience.
The Kerry supporters were selected from local unions that represented aerospace workers, firefighters, teachers, public employees and construction workers. They started filtering through the security gates and into their seats at about 4:15 p.m.
The crowd chatted quietly and waited for their candidate to arrive, many of them with major issues on their minds – health care, jobs and war.
However, Nikolas Moeller, 7, was thinking about starting second grade in just over a week, and his sister Natalie, 4, about losing her two bottom teeth.
The fact that Nikolas is 11 years from being able to cast a ballot did not detract from his enthusiasm.
“I want to vote for John Kerry,” he said. “All of us do. He looks like Abe Lincoln with gray hair and no beard.”
Their father, Boeing engine inspector Matthew Moeller of Des Moines, said it was important to him that his young family got involved in politics.
“I want my grandchildren to have a nice life. My kids will pass this on to them,” he said.
Well before Kerry arrived, John “Hook” Sayers, of Everett; Sally Cunningham, of Renton; and Gabe Duryee, of Bellevue, were ushered to their front-row seats.
There, all three members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers began formulating possible questions should the senator call on them.
“I’ve got a couple for him,” Cunningham said. “Like how to lower the cost of health care.”
“And, as always, get more jobs,” Sayer added.
Duryee wished there could be time to tell the presidential candidate about the bit of mischief he had orchestrated on behalf of the Kerry campaign.
Before the rally, Duryee visited with the Bush supporters outside.
“There was a woman with a great big sign. I put my arm around her and said, ‘Boy, that looks like an awful heavy sign.’”
What she didn’t know, at least for a while, was that Duryee had planted a Kerry-Edwards sticker on her back.
Job talk
Aerospace workers filled nearly half the hall, so it was no surprise that they were pleased to hear Kerry’s assurances to fight for Boeing in its competition with Airbus. And they cheered his denunciation of companies that send business overseas.
Steffon Gillyard, of Auburn, a graphic artist for Boeing in Seattle, quizzed Kerry on outsourcing.
“I can’t guarantee you that every job can stay here,” Kerry replied. But he said the U.S. government could do more to help promote exports by American companies, and should invest more in science and technology research.
The answer wasn’t quite what Gillyard had hoped to hear. Kerry struck him as “sincere and committed, but I don’t think he’s up to speed on the issues,” he said. Still, he plans to vote for Kerry.
Sheryl Barker, a Snohomish County public works employee from Arlington, asked Kerry what he plans to do to lead the nation “out of this quagmire.”
“I guess I could say which quagmire,” Kerry replied. Then, turning to foreign policy, he said his goal was to gather more international support for stabilizing Iraq to end fears that the United States seeks to occupy the nation permanently.
“The answer he gave us on Iraq was good,” Barker said, adding that she wants to read Kerry’s 252-page campaign platform.
Kerry last visited Washington in May, when he laid out the precepts of his national security agenda. Friday’s event focused on jobs and health care with an audience dominated by aerospace workers, trade unionists, educators and nurses.
Republicans see Snohomish County as a swing county. When Democrats win – and they often do – their margins of victory are narrow.
Four years ago, Al Gore won the county by 2,000 votes; Ralph Nader, who may not be on this year’s ballot, collected 9,000 votes.
Organized labor is one of Kerry’s largest blocs of support and enjoys a swaggering presence in Everett, led by the Boeing unions that Democrats so aggressively court.
So it was no surprise that the loudest cheers came with a single reference to the new federal overtime rules.
“Next week, you will hear speeches about the heroes of 9-11, and they were heroes,” Kerry said. “And every hero was a member of organized labor who believed in the 40-hour workweek.”
Kerry touched on aerospace issues, saying he supported a “level playing field” for Boeing and Airbus, which receives direct government loans and other subsidies, and criticized President Bush for being late to recognize the issue.
Kerry also is proposing a two-year payroll tax holiday for manufacturers that add workers, in the hope that will stimulate growth. He also said his health care reform proposals would lower costs for businesses, making them better able to compete with foreign rivals.
After his speech, Kerry told The Herald that he’s been a supporter of Boeing’s proposed deal to provide 100 767 refueling tankers to the U.S. Air Force.
“I supported it in the Senate,” he said.
Kerry is committed to getting the tankers, said Mark Blondin, the Machinists union district president, who met privately with Kerry after the speech.
“When he’s the president, he said he’s going to sign the bill for the tankers,” Blondin said. “We’re going to have new Air Force tankers, and they’re going to be made at Boeing.”
The rally turned out well for machinists union members Cunningham, Sayers and Duryee. They all got to shake Kerry’s hand.
Kerry signed their admission tickets and gave Duryee a signed copy of “Our Plan for America,” a book by Kerry and running mate John Edwards.
“I thought he was just fantastic,” Sayers said.
Sayers and Cunningham didn’t know each other before Friday night, but friendship came quickly as they cheered their candidate.
Sayers “said he was going to have to quit clapping so hard – he was going to hurt himself,” Cunningham said, smiling.
One small interruption came when a man fell ill during Kerry’s speech. He was helped to a gurney. Kerry went over and shook his hand.
As Kerry headed out the door Friday night to a fund-raiser in Seattle, Everett Events Center and Silvertips hockey team leaders gave him an official Silvertips home jersey.
The jersey, which costs $170 in the gift shop, was personalized with Kerry’s name on the back.
“If President Bush comes by Everett, we absolutely will have a jersey for him” as well, said Eric Blankenship, Everett Events Center spokesman.
Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 1-360-352-8623 or jcornfield@ heraldnet.com.
Reporters Bill Sheets, Scott Morris, Bryan Corliss and Diana Hefley contributed to this report.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.