Bush plans to visit Oregon to push economic agenda

Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. — President Bush plans to visit Oregon — which has the nation’s highest jobless rate — this Saturday and is expected to promote his stalled economic stimulus package.

Darryl Howard, the Republican Party’s executive director, said Bush will use the visit to highlight economic issues.

"Oregon has a high unemployment rate, and it makes sense for him to come to Oregon to talk about how he is trying to help stimulate the economy," Howard said.

Details of Bush’s trip are still being worked out, but the president reportedly will visit a Portland job training center and deliver a speech in Portland to invited community and business leaders.

Bush could also use the visit to seek votes for U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, a fellow Republican who is up for re-election this year. Smith is being challenged by Democratic Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.

"I suspect that this visit has to do with the re-election of a certain U.S. senator," said Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, after he explained the state’s budget woes on Wednesday to community leaders in Beaverton.

It will be a closely watched race, as the Democrats try to widen their slim majority in the Senate.

Oregon was the first state in the nation to declare a recession last year, and the state’s weak economy and high jobless rate — 7.4 percent in November — could become an issue in the Senate race.

Smith will accompany Bush during the Oregon visit.

Another topic that could come up during the Bush trip — and a potential Senate campaign issue — is the administration’s attempt to block an Oregon law that allows physicians to help hasten the deaths of terminally ill patients.

Smith personally opposes his state’s assisted-suicide law, and Bradbury supports it.

It will be Bush’s first visit to Oregon since he lost the state to Democrat Al Gore in one of the closest, hardest-fought presidential campaigns in the state’s history.