Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's national fund- raising tour rolled through the Meadowlands last night, and the Massachusetts senator raked in an estimated $1.5 million to help chip into President Bush's imposing financial advantage.
Marching into a hotel ballroom pumping his fists to the usual anthem for political events in New Jersey -- "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen -- Kerry gave hundreds of supporters a helping of anti-Bush rhetoric.
A WHO'S WHO
OF CAMPAIGN ' RAINMAKERS' PAGE 3 "What brings us here tonight," Kerry told them, "is the marking of the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency."
The president was also on the campaign trail yesterday, visiting Iowa to press the case that the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts he pushed through Congress is boosting the economy.
Kerry in turn criticized the president for running up the budget deficit, accused him of rolling back environmental standards and promised to run a more effective war on terror. He vowed to draft a better energy policy and roll back tax cuts for the wealthy to finance better health care.
He said the Republicans are not doing enough to stem the tide of American jobs to other countries, adding, "The one person in the United States of America who deserves to be laid off is George Bush."
Kerry is running virtually even with Bush in the polls but far behind in the pursuit of campaign dollars. The president had raised a record $159.4 million through February, and already has spent tens of millions of dollars on TV ads casting the Democrat as a tax-hiker and a flip-flopper.
Earlier yesterday, Kerry said he would launch a counteroffensive in the coming days in an effort to introduce himself to voters.
His $1,000-a-head gala at the Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel was one stop in a 20-city fund-raising tour to raise the money needed to make his case on the airwaves.
He flew into Newark Liberty International Airport around 4:30 p.m. A group of veterans led by former Marine Jack McGreevey, the governor's father, was there to welcome him.
Around 6 p.m., Kerry met privately at the hotel with county party chairmen and state legislative leaders.
Later, as Kerry worked the VIP room upstairs, shaking hands and posing for photos, other gala-goers milled about the lobby, drinking cocktails and munching on tortellini, roast beef and roasted vegetables.
One entrepreneur sold buttons, three for $10. Depicting Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, they read, "Axis of Evil."
"I'm very interested in getting rid of Bush. Bush makes me nervous," said one donor, Joan Kirkland of Summit. "I think this war with Iraq is a huge mistake."
The event showed that New Jersey Democratic leaders, fractured during the primary fight, have come together behind the presumptive nominee.
Kerry shared the stage not only with U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine (D- N.J.), a supporter early on, but with Gov. James E. McGreevey, who in December led a broad contingent of the state's Democrat leaders behind former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.
"Primaries are primaries," Corzine told the crowd, "and it's time to stand together, and we do. Two hundred days from tonight, we should be having one hell of a celebration."
State Sen. John Adler, co-chairman of the Kerry effort in New Jersey, said a "unified" state party is "focused on electing John Kerry president."
That means raising campaign cash to spend elsewhere. The state is not expected to be a battleground in November. Al Gore carried the state easily in 2000, and Kerry expects to follow suit.
Kerry staffers even handed out leaflets trying to recruit volunteers from New Jersey to travel out-of- state and work on the campaign.
Kerry had raised $1.29 million from New Jerseyans and $41.4 million overall through February. In the past two days, however, he has raised $10 million, including $6.5 million Wednesday night at a Manhattan hotel and $2.4 million for the Democratic National Committee yesterday morning at the 21 Club. He then flew to Washington before coming to New Jersey.
Both Bush and Cheney also have visited New Jersey for fund- raisers, tapping the state for $3.7 million through February.
Yesterday -- the federal income tax filing deadline -- had Bush and Kerry trading barbs on tax policy. Working to cast Kerry as a Democrat who will hike taxes, Bush flew to Iowa to tout his tax cuts and press for Congress to make them permanent: "Now is not the time to be raising taxes on hardworking people," he said.
New Jersey Republicans echoed Bush's pitch. "New Jersey taxpayers cannot afford another tax-and- spend liberal," said State Republican Chairman Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth).
Later, at the Meadowlands, state GOP volunteers showed up to denounce Kerry on taxes. Several dozen Bush backers held signs reading, "Tax Collectors for Kerry," and they chanted, "Tax and spend! Tax and spend!" (One had a simpler message welcoming Kerry to New Jersey: "Hey, Kerry, Bada- bing This!")
Earlier in the day, in an appearance at Howard University in Washington, Kerry accused Bush of misleading voters about his stand on taxes.
"George Bush has made a big deal out of trying to convince America that he's lowered taxes for all Americans and that I'm going to come along and somehow raise taxes on Americans," Kerry told the students. "Under my plan for America, my economic plan, I'm going to provide $225 billion more in tax cuts to the middle class than George Bush ever dreamed of," Kerry said.
In New York, Kerry also accused Bush of exploiting the war on terror for political purposes.
"Home base for George Bush in this race, as you saw to the nth degree in his press conference, is terror," Kerry said. "Ask him a question and he's going to go to terror."
Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot called that a "reckless allegation" and said it shows Kerry's "profound misunderstanding" of the global war on terrorism and the threat facing the United States.
Also yesterday, Kerry met with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Washington archbishop who heads a committee examining how the Catholic Church should deal with Catholic politicians who depart from church teachings. Kerry supports abortion rights, and some Catholic leaders have said that they would deny him communion.
Kerry and McCarrick declined comment after the meeting. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese said the cardinal considered it a "pastoral and private" meeting.