"Sugar growers sour on trade pact, Bush"

More ex-Boosh voters. The polls just do not make sense. Could they be gaming the polls to make the theft in Nov. look legitimate?


By: Rob Hotakainen
Star Tribune Washington Bureau Correspondent
September 10, 2004

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4973407.html

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Four years ago, Vipond, a 53-year-old farmer from Grant County, voted for George W. Bush, figuring Al Gore was too radical an environmentalist. This year, he said, he's likely to vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, figuring Bush is too radical a free trader.

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Bush supporters are trying to prevent defections by pointing out that Kerry has cast votes against the sugar industry. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., noted that in 1999 and 2000 Kerry voted to end the federal sugar program, taking positions that were contrary to those of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, a fellow Democrat.

"John Kerry has a lousy record on sugar. ... This Boston Brahmin is no champion of Midwest agriculture," Coleman said.

But less than two months before Election Day, Democrats say discontentment with Bush is growing and is bound to influence votes in Minnesota, the nation's largest producer of sugar beets and a key battleground in this year's presidential race.

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With anger growing over the president's policies on trade, the economy and the war in Iraq, Peterson said Bush would lose the district if the election were held today. That would be a huge turnaround since 2000, when Bush lost the state but carried the rural Seventh District by nearly 15 percentage points, his biggest margin of victory in a Minnesota congressional district.

I've had a lot of people come up and tell me they voted for him last time and they're not going to vote for him this time," Peterson said. "And I haven't had one single person come up to me and say, 'I voted for Al Gore and this time I'm voting for George Bush.

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