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Democratic
U.S. senatorial candidate Erskine Bowles made a campaign stop in
Boone Thursday as part of his “North Carolina First” bus
tour.
Bowles
gave an energetic presentation to the crowd of about 150 people
at the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center. He told supporters he
was “jacked up” by a double-digit lead in the polls against
Republican candidate Richard Burr and said his travels around the
state have increased enthusiasm for the race.
“People
want someone who will go to Washington and do something real,”
Bowles said. “They have real problems and real concerns.”
According
to a statewide telephone poll conducted for Raleigh media outlets
The News & Observer, WRAL-TV and WUNC radio, Bowles leads Burr
by a margin of 46 to 37 percent. The poll included 600 likely voters.
Words
from the Wood Pile
Bowles said he had listened to people as he campaigned and said
they wanted better opportunities to live, learn and recreate. He
said he had talked to people who had jobs and lost them or were
unable to find work.
He
adopted his tour name because he said he would put the whole state
first in Washington, D.C. He named the bus the “wood pile”
because his father told him businesses should add to the “community
wood pile.”
Bowles
promised to put partisanship aside, citing his work as Chief of
Staff in the Clinton administration. He said he helped pass a balanced
budget in 1997 for the first time in 30 years by working with leaders
from both parties.
“I’m
proud that we balanced it in the right way,” he said, listing
increases in education spending that boosted the number of teachers
and Head Start programs. He said the budget also added health insurance
for five million poor kids and added 100,000 police.
Economy
Speaking of the economy, Bowles talked about a couple he met in
Rutherfordton. They were employees of a textile mill making a household
income of $60,000 with good benefits. He said now they were not
classified as unemployed even though they had lost their jobs. The
wife had stopped looking and the husband was working in a retail
store for $14,000 a year.
“I
have a real jobs plan, not just a bunch of words,” he said.
On foreign trade, Bowles said he favors a “sensible trade policy”
that would force foreign markets to open up to American goods.
“I
will not vote for any trade agreements until we enforce the ones
we have on the books,” he said.
Bowles claimed the federal government paid $67 billion in tax credits
for businesses to locate overseas. He proposed to use that money
to keep businesses in the U.S. and in North Carolina and help small
businesses.
Environment
Bowles supports stronger environmental regulation, saying his opponent,
Burr, had been rated at 6 percent on such legislative issues by
the League of Conservation Voters. He said the Great Smoky Mountains
were the most-visited national park but was also the most-polluted.
“You
used to be able to see over 100 miles on average, and now you can
see 15 miles,” he said. “That’s not right. We have
a real problem, but it’s not just an environmental problem,
it’s an economic problem and a health problem.”
He
said if tourists no longer visited, the local economy would be hurt
and he laid the blame squarely on President’s George W. Bush’s
doormat.
“President
Bush has a law called the ‘Clear Skies’ initiative, I
call it the ‘Clear Lies’ initiative,” he said.
Bowles said he would demand Midwestern coal-fired power plants and
the Tennessee Valley Authority to clean up their emissions. He said
pollution was a significant healthcare problem because asthma and
other diseases were made worse and more costly.
Homeland
Security
Bowles said he had a plan to enhance homeland security by beefing
up security around ports, nuclear plants, and chemical factories.
He said 75,000 shipments came through the port at Wilmington every
year but only five percent were inspected. He predicted an incident
could kill “tens of thousands of people.”
“We
can’t be passive about this, it has to be a priority for this
country,” he said.
Healthcare
Although he divulged few details, Bowles said he had a plan to fix
Medicaid spending and said the federal government should use its
“market muscle” to get better deals on prescription drugs.
“We spent $530 billion buying $530 billion worth of drugs,”
he said, saying the government should be able to get drugs at half
or two-thirds the price.
He
blamed the partisan environment in Washington, which he said “polarized
and paralyzed” the government, adding his ideas were neither
Republican nor Democratic.
“I
think they’re good ideas,” he said, pledging to work for
“real-world, common-sense solutions.”
Bowles’ stop was the first of nine planned for the tour. Before
leaving for Hickory, Bowles told the crowd that many voters were
saying the November election was the most important election of
their lifetimes.
Bowles owned two financial-services companies in Charlotte and was
director of the federal Small Business Administration in 1993. He
became Deputy Chief of Staff in 1994. He served as chair of the
state’s Rural Prosperity Task Force in 1998.
After
an unsuccessful Senate bid in 2002 against Republican Elizabeth
Dole, Bowles began running for the seat currently occupied by Democratic
vice-presidential hopeful John Edwards. Bowles faced no opposition
in Tuesday’s primary election. Burr easily defeated two opponents,
garnering 88 percent of the vote.
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Scott Nicholson may be contacted at nicholson@wataugademocrat.com.
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