Is Burr stuck between Bush and a buyout?

Is Burr stuck between Bush and a buyout?

GOP Senate hopeful needs tobacco farmers president has angered

MARK JOHNSON

Raleigh Bureau


U.S. Senate candidate Richard Burr, at first, defended his fellow Republican, President Bush, after Bush said he saw no need for a tobacco quota buyout.

"I think it's probably off (Bush's) screen," Burr, now a congressman from tobacco-dependant Winston-Salem, told his hometown newspaper in a May 8 article, four days after Bush's comments. "That's where we've wanted it to stay. I don't think you can ever have a president up for election that can come out and be an advocate."

N.C. tobacco farmers -- squeezed by annual reductions in the federally set quota and by competition from cheaper, imported tobacco -- have been clambering for a buyout for years. They started to vent their outrage over Bush's remarks.

A week later, Burr switched gears and took a light swipe at Bush:

"Clearly the president is wrong," he told the Washington


Post.http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/politics/8729790.htm

Tobacco farmers are going to hold Mr. Burr and the Republicans accountable for what they have said and what they have done," said Jerry West, a former president of the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina who voted for Bush but is backing Bowles in the Senate race, "and it appears now they haven't done anything."

On a campaign stop in Cincinnati, Bush told a local newspaper he sees no need for a buyout. "They've got the quota system in place -- the allotment system," he said, "and I don't think that needs to be changed."

Burr had been quoted in February saying he discussed the buyout with Bush, but after Bush's comment, Burr seemed to suggest that Bush wasn't well-enough informed on the topic

Look at these three paragraphs, and think N.C. is going Democratic come fall, especially if it is a Kerry/Edwards with Clark helping out.