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By JODI WILGOREN
Published: October 22, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 21 - Clad in camouflage clothing, a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun under his arm, Senator John Kerry and three fellow hunters emerged from an eastern Ohio cornfield Thursday morning with four dead geese and an image his aides hope will help shore up his macho bona fides among rural voters.
"Everybody got one, everybody got one," said Mr. Kerry, his hand stained with goose blood, though he was the only member of the hunting party not carrying a carcass.
An aide said later that two of the birds would soon be sent back to Mr. Kerry for consumption.
The unusual trip in these hectic final days before the election was part of Mr. Kerry's lengthy effort to appeal, as a fellow sportsman, to the rural blue-collar voters who were considered critical to President Bush's victory in heartland states like this one in 2000. It also provided pictures that his aides hope will deflect Mr. Bush's portrayal of Mr. Kerry as a weak-kneed liberal, and fit into a broader effort this week to show him as a "regular guy," drinking beer while watching baseball, and speaking in a folksier style.
The National Rifle Association, which is spending $20 million to help re-elect Mr. Bush, greeted the political hunting party with a full-page advertisement in a nearby newspaper, The Youngstown Vindicator, that showed a gun-toting Mr. Kerry over the tagline, "If John Kerry wins, hunters lose."
President Bush, campaigning in Hershey, Pa., inserted a line about the Second Amendment into his stump speech and mocked Mr. Kerry, saying, "He can run - he can even run in camo - but he cannot hide."
Across this swing state in Sylvania, Ohio, Vice President Dick Cheney pointed out Mr. Kerry's "F" rating from the N.R.A., stemming from his support of a ban on assault weapons. "The Second Amendment is more than just a photo opportunity," said Mr. Cheney, whose own celebrated duck hunting trip this year - with Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court - was not open to news photographers.
"I understand he bought a new camouflage jacket for the occasion, which did make me wonder how regularly he does go goose hunting," Mr. Cheney said to a chorus of boos. "My personal opinion is his new camo jacket is an October disguise, an effort he's making to hide the fact that he votes against gun-owner rights at every turn."
In fact, the outfit was borrowed, along with the shotgun, from the farm's owner, and within hours Mr. Kerry was back in tailored suit and rose-colored tie for another photo-op, hugging the widow of the actor Christopher Reeve, who endorsed him because of his backing embryonic stem-cell research.
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