Edwards goes on offensive against GOP

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has spent the week promoting his "smart and safe" trade policies, but he strayed briefly from the topic Friday to tell Las Vegans "how out of touch the Republicans are."

"There are a couple of things that have happened, literally in the last 48 hours, that just emphasize exactly what I'm saying," he said at the start of a town hall meeting.

"First, President Bush says there's no need to do anything special about what predatory lenders are doing to the American people, and about the extraordinary home foreclosure rate in America today -- the fact that thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans are losing the one thing they've spent most of their lives trying to create, which is a home. And President Bush is completely out of touch, sees no reason to do anything different or special about that. Well, he's wrong."

Then Edwards mentioned Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, drawing boos from the estimated 300 people circled around him at the Laborers International Union Local 872 office in northeast Las Vegas.

Edwards paraphrased controversial comments made a day earlier by the former New York mayor about the Sept. 11 cleanup workers. During a stop in Cincinnati, Giuliani said he had been "at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers."

"That's all we need is another person trying to exploit the tragedy of 9/11," Edwards said. "And, what he ought to be talking about instead is trying to explain why the firefighters, the first responders to 9/11, didn't have the equipment and the tools that they needed, the tools they needed to do their job the way it needed to be done, because that's been raised over and over and over with Rudy Giuliani."

Katie Levinson, a top spokeswoman for the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, responded with the statement: "For John Edwards to lecture Rudy Giuliani about September 11th is laughable at best. This is, after all, the same guy who thinks the war on terror is simply a 'bumper sticker.'"

Friday marked Edwards' ninth visit to Nevada this year and his seventh to Las Vegas. After the town hall meeting, the former North Carolina senator and former vice presidential nominee held a rally with about 250 members of the Culinary union's negotiating committee.

The Edwards campaign boasts that he has been to Nevada more than any other "major candidate." Of the presidential candidates, only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who trails Edwards in polls, has spent more time in Nevada.

Edwards' meeting Friday with the Culinary union, his third this year, came on the heels of visits this week by his chief rivals, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

The 60,000-member union represents most hotel workers on the Strip and is expected to be a powerful organizing force in the first-time early Democratic presidential caucuses to be held in Nevada on Jan. 19.

The union has not decided which candidate it will endorse.

"Whichever candidate we do choose, we will definitely get them elected," said Judy Bagley, a cashier at Fitzgeralds and a 30-year Culinary member.

Bagley attended Clinton's rally Thursday, as well as Friday's rallies with Obama and Edwards. All three candidates impressed her.

"There's so many good points that they all have," she said. "I do not know what the deciding factor's going to be."

Culinary is locked in a battle with MGM Mirage over renewal of a contract that expired in May. The union has scheduled a strike authorization vote for September, meaning its members will decide whether to authorize the negotiating committee to call for strikes if no contract has been signed.

Clinton, Obama and Edwards all have pledged to walk the picket line with union members if a strike ensues.

Edwards received cheers and applause Friday as he vowed, "I will always be in this fight with you."

"He said everything we wanted to hear -- and probably more," Bagley said.

Edwards, who portrays himself as the candidate for working people, wore bluejeans and an open-collared shirt to Friday's events.

Velma Spencer, 78, invited her daughter, 47-year-old Sabrina Robins, to join her at the town hall meeting. Both women, who are Democrats, heard Clinton speak previously in Las Vegas.

"All of them sound good when they're talking," Spencer said after listening to Edwards. "I'm still undecided."

Edwards had Spencer's vote in one category, however. After he arrived at the meeting, Spencer leaned toward a reporter seated next to her and whispered, "He's a good-looking chap, huh?"

When Edwards began telling the audience "how out of touch the Republicans are," Spencer whispered: "We don't need to hear that. We already know that."

Edwards is proposing a national Home Rescue Fund and bankruptcy reforms to help families prevent foreclosure. He also has vowed to enact strong national predatory lending legislation.

This week he also has been promoting his "smart and safe" trade plan. As part of the plan, he has promised to ensure the safety of imported food and drugs and enforce mandatory country-of-origin labeling.

In addition, he has promised to enforce a "zero tolerance" rule and immediately freeze the specific import of any food, toys, medicines or other goods that threaten the health of Americans.

Robins said she enjoyed the points Edwards made about safe trade, as well as his promise to end the war in Iraq, but she has not decided who will get her vote in the race.

Dick Johnson, a member of Carpenters Local 1977, attended the town hall meeting and said he previously heard Clinton speak.

Johnson, a 72-year-old Democrat, is undecided but said he favors Clinton because he likes the idea "of getting two for one" -- the senator and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"He knows what the score is," Johnson said. "I always did like the way he governed. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but he didn't rub me the wrong way."