Bush, Kerry hit Midwest with Labor Day job messages

CANONSBURG, Pa. -- Democrat John Kerry opened his packed Labor Day schedule in battleground states Monday with talk of jobs, criticizing the Bush administration for doing little to help workers in a tough economy.\n"If you want four more years of your wages falling ... if you want four more years of losing jobs overseas and replacing them with jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs you had before, then you should go vote for George Bush," Kerry said at an early rally.\nJobs, not surprisingly, were the order of the day for both campaigns, which were fanning out across the Midwest, appealing for votes in the territory pivotal to winning November's election.\nPresident Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were heading to three states between them Monday; Kerry and running mate John Edwards were venturing to six. Cheney and Edwards set campaign courses that cross paths in St. Paul, Minn.\nPolls in half of the eight states on the candidates' Labor Day agenda -- Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Ohio -- show them running neck-and-neck. Those four states offer 58 electoral votes, more than 20 percent of the total needed to win.\nKerry chose to spend his Labor Day in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, hoping to sway traditionally Democratic West Virginia away from its tilt toward Bush. He joined mine workers in a Labor Day celebration.\nArmed with statistics, Kerry told workers that Bush had done little to help them weather bad economic times.\n"If you want health care for all Americans, if you want schools that work, if you want jobs that pay you more money, if you want Social Security that's there for the future, then we need to move America in a new direction," he said.\nKerry's campaign said jobs created under Bush's watch pay less and offer fewer benefits than those lost, as employers struggle to handle increased health care costs.\nSeveral studies by private economists show that new jobs created in the last year pay below the median hourly wage for all jobs.\nBush, campaigning Sunday in West Virginia, said Kerry would "stifle job creation" with tax increases. Kerry wants to roll back Bush's income and investment tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of the nation.\n"My opponent has promised to raise some taxes. That's a promise politicians tend to keep," Bush said. "This Labor Day weekend, it's important for America's workers to know that my opponent wants to tax your jobs."\nBush was shoring up support late Monday in Missouri, where strategists say the close race leans in Bush's direction.\nKerry, who has fallen behind in recent polls, spoke at length Sunday with former President Clinton, who was undergoing heart bypass surgery in a New York hospital Monday.\nClinton reinforced his view that a strong campaign message can be hammered out of Bush's record on jobs, Iraq and other issues, said a Democratic official familiar with the talk who asked not to be identified.\nThe New York Times first reported the Kerry-Clinton chat in Monday editions.