Cheney to campaign at MCO on Monday

7/16/2004

Vice President Dick Cheney will make a campaign appearance Monday at the Medical College of Ohio to talk about health-care costs, the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign confirmed last night.

The event is set for 5 p.m. at the Dana Conference Center, 3110 Glendale Ave.

The campaign released no other details last night.

The event is a Republican campaign stop, not an official visit. The Bush/Cheney re-election campaign, not taxpayers, will pay for the cost of the trip.

It was unclear whether the event will be open to the public, or whether attendance will be allowed with tickets or by invitation only.

Mr. Cheney was last in the Toledo area during the 2000 campaign, when he met with citizens at the Maumee Senior Center and then traveled to North Baltimore, Ohio, to talk with truckers at an I-75 truck stop about high fuel costs. Fuel costs that fall ranged from the $1.20s to the $1.50s per gallon, reports showed.

Those stops were part of a campaign bus tour in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign.

He was last in Ohio on July 3, when he embarked on another bus tour that included a rally in Parma and other small stops on his way to Wheeling, W.Va., and Pennsylvania.

That trip came just before Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry announced he had selected North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as his running mate.

Ohio, which has 20 Electoral College votes and was won by President Bush in a close race four years ago, is considered a toss-up state in the November election. Opinion polls show the race here is too close to call.

Contact Fritz Wenzel at:

fritz@theblade.com

or 419-724-6134.