By Patrick Crowley
Enquirer staff writer

BELLEVUE - Congressional candidate Nick Clooney took some partisan heat this week for staying away from the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

The camp of his opponent, Republican Geoff Davis, suggested Clooney didn't go to Boston so he wouldn't be aligned with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who will have a difficult time carrying Northern Kentucky's conservative 4th Congressional District.

But based on the outpouring of support Clooney received Thursday night in this Campbell County city, he made the right call.

More than 225 people packed the Bellevue Veterans Club Hall for a nearly two-hour town hall meeting Clooney convened on the very night Kerry was giving his nominating speech in Boston.

"I haven't seen enthusiasm like this for a long time," said Bellevue Democrat Bill Donnermeyer, a former state representative who retired from politics in 1994 after 25 years in Frankfort. "You can feel it."

Clooney spoke, but mostly took questions. He and his wife, Nina, stopped in the club's bar to shake hands before heading to their hometown of Augusta.

Clooney hit on several planks of his platform during a spirited give-and-take with the audience that included:

• Health care: He said the prescription drug benefit pushed by the Bush administration and passed by Congress this year is not reducing the cost of drugs for seniors and needs to be revisited.

• Job creation: Only manufacturers that create jobs in the United States - and not those that move operations overseas - should be given federal tax breaks.

• Tax cuts: The $90 billion in income tax breaks the Bush administration and Congress gave to the top wage earners - the 200,000 families making $350,000 a year or more - should be rolled back.

The loudest applause came when Clooney criticized the Bush administration for cutting veterans' benefits.

"We must keep our promises to who wore the uniform of our country and paid the blood tax on our freedom," he said.

Republicans issued a statement earlier in the day, challenging Clooney to say whether he stands with Kerry on the issues.

"Mr. Clooney," the Davis campaign said in a statement, "exactly which issues are you in accord with John Kerry and the Democrats on, and which are you not? The voters deserve to know."

The Clooney event was sponsored by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.

E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com