Friday, August 06, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Kerry campaign plans Las Vegas stop

Democrats to hold Tuesday rally at Thomas & Mack

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, second from left, and his wife, Teresa, left, join vice presidential nominee Sen. John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, in waving to supporters Thursday as their campaign train leaves Union Station in St. Louis. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Click image for enlargement. Former Nevada Gov. Bob Miller on Thursday announces a Tuesday visit by Sen. John Kerry to Nevada. A public rally at the Thomas & Mack Center is slated for Tuesday evening. Photo by Craig L. Moran.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, will bring a leg of the campaign's "Believe in America" tour to Las Vegas next week with a public rally.

The only event announced Thursday by the campaign is an evening rally Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The exact time of the event has not been determined.

The trip will be Kerry's third this year to Nevada, a key battleground state and one of the most closely contested in several recent national polls. President Bush has not been to Las Vegas this year, but he visited Reno in June.

The White House releases the president's travel schedule a week in advance, and some local Republicans said they've been told Bush will be in Las Vegas on Thursday, but Bush-Cheney and White House media officials have not confirmed that.

"Senator Kerry has a distinct advantage here in Nevada because Senator Kerry has voted numerous times against sending deadly nuclear waste to this state," former Gov. Bob Miller said Thursday at the Cox Pavilion while announcing Kerry's visit. "The president has had but one vote, and it was to screw Nevada."

Yucca Mountain has been a centerpiece of the race in Nevada because of Bush's statements as a candidate in 2000 that he would base any decision about a nuclear waste repository on "sound science, not politics." Democrats say Bush went back on that promise when he approved Yucca Mountain as the repository site despite remaining scientific concerns.

Republicans say that Bush was relying on years of study by the Department of Energy and that they believe scientific concerns will be answered either by the courts or by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in its licensing of the project.

Last week, Republican Sen. John Ensign criticized Kerry for voting in 1987 to narrow the future study of a national repository to only one site: Yucca Mountain. Kerry voted against bills seeking interim storage of waste at Yucca, and in 2002 he voted with Nevada's senators to block Bush's designation of the site.

Kerry Nevada campaign spokesman Sean Smith said he expects Kerry to talk about Yucca Mountain during his trip next week.

"That's never been John Kerry's problem," Smith said.

Kerry has vowed that Yucca Mountain "will not be a repository" if he's elected, but he has not offered specifics on how he would kill the project.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign also is hoping to hold an event in Las Vegas that highlights a specific issue, probably before the public rally Tuesday.

Exact details of the campaign's arrival and route have not been finalized, nor has a decision on whether to visit Northern Nevada.

When the tour began immediately after the Democratic National Convention in Boston, vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards was on the bus with Kerry. He then went on a separate tour, mostly in Southern states, and met up again with Kerry on Thursday in St. Louis.

From St. Louis, the two men began an 1,800-mile trip West. The train is expected to stop Sunday night in Arizona. Edwards is not expected to visit Nevada next week.

The rally will be free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets can be obtained by calling the state Democratic Party at 737-VOTE or by sending an e-mail request to rsvp@nvdems.com.