Bush and Kerry Keep Focus on Domestic Issues

VAN BUREN, Ark. —  President Bush and Democratic rival John F. Kerry each sought to spotlight their domestic agendas on Tuesday, even as the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal grabbed much of the attention from the race for the White House.

Kerry promoted his healthcare proposals in Kentucky and Florida, while Bush defended his signature education program, No Child Left Behind, at an Arkansas junior high school.

“We’re not backing down,” Bush said of the law, which imposed federal testing in elementary and middle schools to enhance accountability among educators.

Referring to complaints by some state officials about the tests, the president said, “I do not care how much pressure they put on the process, I’m not changing my mind.”

In a speech to several hundred supporters in a stifling gymnasium, Bush did not mention the U.S. troops’ abuse of Iraqi prisoners. But a spokesman said Bush watched parts of Tuesday’s Senate testimony by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the author of a report detailing the misconduct.

The loudest cheer for Bush came when he praised the military effort in Iraq.

“On your TV screens, you’re seeing tough work, because there are people who can’t stand the thought of free societies springing up in the middle, in the midst, of hatred and violence in the Middle East,” Bush said. “But our troops are making sacrifices for our short-term and long-term security, a peaceful Iraq, a free Iraq, which is going to happen.”

Kerry, while pressing his healthcare agenda Tuesday at stops in Louisville, Ky., and Jacksonville, Fla., made brief remarks on the Iraq prison scandal. While saying the abusive conduct was “not the behavior of 99.9% of the troops,” he said it also was not limited to a few “privates or corporals or sergeants.”

“This is something that comes out of an attitude about the rights of prisoners of war,” he told supporters at a Louisville fundraiser. “It’s an attitude that comes out of how we went [to Iraq] in the first place. It’s an attitude that comes out of America’s overall arrogance in policy that has alienated countries all around the world. And I believe, as president, I know how to run a war on terror that actually makes America safer and stronger and lives up to our values.”

Even as the national dialogue was consumed with events in Iraq -- including the filmed beheading of an American civilian by Islamic militants -- Tuesday’s appearances by Bush and Kerry showed that both campaigns believe their contest could ride on issues more personal to many voters. These include the quality of local schools, job availability and access to healthcare.

In Arkansas, which Bush won in 2000, he used his appearance at Butterfield Junior High School to offer a point-by-point rebuttal to critics of the No Child Left Behind law.

If Congress approves his budget requests for next year, he said, federal spending on education will have risen by nearly 50% since he took office in 2001. He touted higher reading and math scores, saying Arkansas was above the national average. And, addressing critics who say standardized tests force instructors to “teach to the test,” Bush said the results would still lead to higher achievement.

“If a test measures basic knowledge, the basics in math or reading, then teaching the test means you’re teaching a child the basic knowledge of reading and math,” he said .

Still, Bush said, “I understand some adjustments need to be made even in the best laws,” referring to his support for giving schools more flexibility in the way they measure non-English-speaking and special-education students.

The law was passed in 2002 with strong support from both parties, but became a major target of candidates in the Democratic presidential primaries. They accused Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress of failing to provide enough money to carry out its mandates.

Meanwhile, some conservatives have accused Bush of taking a big-government approach to schools.

Kerry, on the second of four days devoted to pitching the healthcare plan he unveiled last year, emphasized the part of the proposal that would cut premiums for small businesses. This emphasis continued Kerry’s effort to cast himself as a centrist.

At a local pottery factory, Louisville Stoneware, Kerry lamented the rising cost of buying health insurance for employees.

“It’s sketchy, it’s difficult, it’s costly,” he told several dozen people in the factory’s clay room.

“For four years, President Bush has been in office, and for four years, the situation has gotten worse for small businesses and for Americans.”

Half a dozen local residents sitting with Kerry echoed his concerns, including a pharmacist who said he saw customers every day who could not afford their prescription drugs. Kerry’s plan would give small businesses a tax credit of up to 50% of their costs for coverage of their low- and moderate-income employees. It would also offer federal relief for coverage of catastrophic illness.

Kerry emphasized his intention to cut the cost of healthcare, not to reform the system entirely, referring to the failure of President Clinton’s vast proposal of the early 1990s.

“I learned a lot of lessons then -- as we all did,” Kerry said. “So this plan of mine is built on those lessons.”

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Wallsten reported from Van Buren, Ark., and Gold from Louisville, Ky. Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.