Cheney gives Swallow assist

The vice president then listed programs a Democratic-majority Congress would fight to overturn: The Bush tax cuts, a national energy plan, a healthy-forest initiative, banning partial-birth abortions, among others.

Ironically, many of the items Cheney mentioned were actually supported by Matheson, who has faced criticism in his own Democrat Party for voting so often with House Republicans and the president.

But don't be fooled, said Swallow. Democrats and Matheson "are not like us," he said referring to Republicans being the majority of the state's citizens. "There are real differences between us and them."

He then criticized Matheson for changing campaign slogans over two years ago. "You remember the old one? Matheson Makes Sense." But Matheson's new slogan, says Swallow, is Putting Utah First.

"He can't say he makes sense anymore," said Swallow, because 75 percent of the time Matheson votes with Democrats. "So only 25 percent of the time he makes sense" since most Utahns support a GOP/Bush agenda.

Swallow said his son pointed out: "Dad, a 25-percent grade is failing."

Both Cheney and Swallow said the Democratic National Convention, running this week in Boston, is trying to fool Americans into believing Bush is weak, the country is in bad shape, and they have answers.

But Democrats are just offering "failed thinking of the past. And we aren't going back," said Cheney.

Gov. Olene Walker promised Cheney that Utahns would give the Bush/Cheney ticket the largest victory margin in the nation. Not a risky promise. Utahns have voted for the Republican presidential candidate ever since 1964.

And a new Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll by Dan Jones & Associates shows if the election were today, Bush has 63 percent support to Sen. John Kerry's 28 percent support. In 2000, Utah gave Bush his largest percentage victory of any state, too.

Utahns were basically split over the question of whether Bush should keep Cheney on the ticket this year. Twenty-one percent said Cheney on the ticket will help Bush's re-election, 18 percent said it would hurt, but 58 percent said whether Cheney is on the ticket or not makes no difference to them. Only 29 percent of Utah Republicans thought keeping Cheney on the ticket would help Bush, Jones found in a survey taken earlier this month.

About half of Cheney's 15-minute speech was about Iraq and protecting the United States from terrorists.

He said Kerry and his vice-presidential running mate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., may have supported the original vote to go to war in Iraq, but later when the Senate voted 87-12 to provide "body armor, hazard pay, jet fuel and ammunition" to in-field troops, Kerry and Edwards were in the small group voting "no."

Kerry said the bill and situation were "complicated," said Cheney. "But John Swallow knows, that is never a complicated choice. And George Bush supports them 100 percent."

Bush has given major tax cuts each year for three years, said Cheney. While Kerry has voted 350 times to raise taxes in his years in office. "That averages out to be (a tax-hike vote) once every three weeks the last 20 years," Cheney told the cheering crowd, which was stacked with current and past GOP officeholders.

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E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com