By Howard Wilkinson and Kevin Aldridge
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledges the crowd Friday while giving a short address at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. He then went downtown for a fund-raising event. The Cincinnati Enquirer/GLENN HARTONG

DAYTON, Ohio - Vice President Dick Cheney gave Wright-Patterson Air Force Base a quick pat on the back Friday before giving the Democratic presidential candidate the back of his hand at a $1,000-per-plate fund-raising lunch.

Cheney flew into Ohio's largest military installation Friday morning for a 10-minute appearance in front of 1,200 military and civilian workers.

After he praised the Air Force base's role in the Iraq war, his motorcade took the 10-mile ride to downtown Dayton, where about 150 supporters waited to hear him light into the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

Both campaigns identify Ohio as a presidential battleground.

"These are not times for leaders who change with the political winds, saying one thing one day and something else the next,'' the vice president told the crowd at the Crowne Plaza hotel. "We need a commander-in-chief of clear vision and steady determination and we have that with President Bush.''

More than $200,000 was raised for the Bush-Cheney campaign at the downtown event. The vice president went to Louisville for another political fund-raising event.

More than 100 protestors gathered outside of the hotel toting anti-war signs and handing out baloney sandwiches, which one man said symbolized his opinion of Cheney's message.

"Cheney doesn't care about anybody," said John W. Wardell, a Kerry supporter and Dayton resident.

Cheney's 15-minute speech focused largely on criticisms of Kerry and the need to defend the United States from the threat of international terrorism.

"Such an enemy cannot be appeased or negotiated with," Cheney said. "It can only be destroyed. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the task at hand."

That task has been under intense scrutiny this week by an independent commission in Washington examining how the Bush administration dealt with the terrorist threat before the attacks of 9/11.

Cheney drew an ovation from the crowd when he said that President Bush would continue to seek the support of nations in the war on terror, but that "the United States will never seek a permission slip to ensure the security of our country."

He said former Iraq president Saddam Hussein would likely still be in power if it were left up to Kerry. The Massachusetts senator voted for a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq but against giving Bush an $87 billion appropriation to prosecute the war.

"It is not an impressive record for someone who wants to become commander in chief in this time of testing," Cheney said.

Kerry opposed the expenditure because he said it furthered a failed military policy in Iraq.

The start of Cheney's fund-raising tour of Ohio and Kentucky was the stop at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the largest single-site employer in Ohio.

Minutes after Cheney's plane rolled to a stop on the flight line at Wright-Patterson, the vice president, clad in an Air Force flight jacket bearing the vice presidential seal, strode into a hangar to make a brief speech to about 1,200 cheering airmen and civilian workers.

"Our nation has counted on the 22,000 men and women of Wright-Patterson, military and civilian, and you have always come through for us,'' said Cheney.

At the air base, Cheney praised units such as the Ohio Air National Guard's 178th Fighter Wing, based in nearby Springfield, that was deployed in the Iraq war last year and Wright-Patterson's 445th Airlift Wing, which shuttled wounded soldiers to medical care in Germany and the U.S.

He also praised the work of Wright-Patterson's Aeronautical Systems Center, which developed weapons systems for the stealth fighter, the B-2 stealth bomber, the C-17 Globemaster transport and other aircraft that were part of the initial strikes on Iraq a year ago.

"You helped bring down the regime of Saddam Hussein,'' said Cheney.

"I think it's great that the vice president would come here to thank us,'' said Karen Cook of Urbana. "It makes you feel special.''

Email hwilkinson@enquirer.com and kaldridge@enquirer.com