MARKING HIS TERRITORY (via AWW):

In your face: Bush gives Kerry a Boston beaning (Andrew Miga, March 26, 2004, Boston Herald)

Red-meat rhetoric topped the menu last night as President Bush took aim at Sen. John F. Kerry at a Boston fund-raising reception, needling his rival as a big-spending Democrat eager to boost taxes.

Spicing his attacks with a dash of humor as he invaded Kerry's home turf, Bush seized on the senator's 1993 vote that would have boosted the federal gasoline tax by 50 cents per gallon.

"He wanted you to pay the extra money at the pump - and he wouldn't even throw in a free car wash,'' Bush said to a crowd of about 1,000 well-heeled supporters who paid upwards of $2,000 apiece to attend his reception at the Boston Park Plaza ballroom.

Bush ticked off a laundry list of tax cuts, ranging from the marriage penalty to the child care tax credit and the death tax, that he accused Kerry of opposing.

"My opponent is one of the main opponents of tax relief in the United States Congress,'' Bush said. ``Over the years, he voted over 350 times for higher taxes on the American people, including the biggest tax increase in American history.'' [...]

Bush shared the stage with Gov. Mitt Romney and his Bay State fund-raising chief, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Richard J. Egan, founder of Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. Former Gov. William F. Weld was among the crowd.

A playful Bush tweaked Romney's national political ambitions, noting he telephoned Sunday's traditional St. Patrick's Day political roast in South Boston.

"When I called in, I had the feeling they were going to ask me about a Massachusetts politician who had his eye on the White House,'' Bush recalled. ``So I addressed the issue as directly as possible: I told Mitt the job was filled until 2008."

Geez, you half expect to read that he whizzed on a fire hydrant in front of Kerry's townhouse or rubbed his rump on a tree in the Commons.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 26, 2004 8:29 AM