2004 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

• America can do better, Kerry says • Text of John Kerry's acceptance speech • Pollster finds Kerry a hit with 'swings' • Delegates promise immediate Ohio blitz • Crew tells the nation about 'Nam exploits • Notes from Boston • Multimedia: Democratic convention • Gannett News Service convention coverage • Enquirer's election section

Campaign's 'ground zero'

Newly minted vice-presidential candidate John Edwards told Ohio delegates at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday that he and John Kerry know Ohio is "ground zero for this presidential campaign."

"John Kerry and I intend to spend enormous amounts of time in Ohio, reaching voters, touching people," he said to cheers.

Edwards stopped by about a half-dozen state delegation breakfasts, including Michigan's and West Virginia's, two other nearby battleground states, said Kerry campaign spokeswoman Kathy Roeder.

Edwards said it was "no accident" that Ohio was the Democratic candidates' first stop after Kerry named Edwards as his running mate this month. He said Ohio voters are hungry for a president like Kerry, "who understands their lives."

Kerry and Edwards will visit Zanesville, Springfield and Bowling Green this weekend on their bus trip out of the convention. Edwards said they'll be back in traditionally Republican Greater Cincinnati as well.

Next president? Not quite ...

Former Ohio Sen. John Glenn accidentally introduced Edwards as "the next president of the United States" at the Thursday breakfast.

A smiling Edwards bounced onto the raised speaking platform and launched into his speech without acknowledging the slip.

Breakfast advantage

Meanwhile, the "breakfast gap" continues. Ohio's special status has brought it better breakfast guests all week, culminating with Thursday's visit by Edwards. At the Kentucky delegation Thursday, the star speaker was retired state Sen. Georgia Powers of Louisville.

Ohio puts Kerry over the top

Ohio delegates cast the "deciding" votes Wednesday night that officially gave John Kerry the nomination.

But the delegation got little warning, and no one from the party bothered to tell the Ohio press, even though the whole point of the perk was to showcase Ohio's status this year as a key swing state.

"We're not just another pretty state in the crowd," is the message, said David Kolbe, 54, the state AFL-CIO's political director.

While rumors had circulated even before the convention that Ohio would get the deciding-votes honor, state party chairman Denny White said he didn't get the word until about 6 p.m.

"That was their call, their decision," White said of party officials. "We didn't lobby ... there was no discussion, no communication. It was a great honor."

Bunny suit' photos bounce back

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Photographs of Sen. John Kerry dressed in a blue NASA "clean suit" while climbing around inside the shuttle Discovery disappeared from NASA's Web site for several hours Thursday after the agency's lawyers said they might violate federal law.

The lawyers, noting that the Hatch Act prohibits campaign activities on government installations, advised the agency to delete photos of Kerry, Florida Democratic Sens. Bill Nelson and Bob Graham, and former astronaut John Glenn, who represented Ohio in the Senate.

The photos were taken during an exclusive tour of Kennedy Space Center and the shuttle Monday.

After a legal review, NASA decided to put the photos back online.

There apparently was no objection to Kerry's campaign holding an invitation-only rally, also Monday, on federal property at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Photos of that event also were deleted from the Web site and will not be reposted, a NASA spokesman said.

"To ensure NASA's apolitical stance, general counsel wanted to review the photographs," said Bob Jacobs, a spokesman at the space agency's headquarters in Washington. "The ones that won't be up there are the ones from the rally itself."

The photographs of Kerry in the blue garment that NASA workers jokingly refer to as a "bunny suit" immediately became fodder for jokes. The pictures were compared to the infamous shot of 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis in an Army tank wearing a helmet.

Enquirer Washington Bureau reporter Carl Weiser and Enquirer news services contributed.