Bush coming to town Thursday

01/31/2006

President is going on post-speech tour

Pioneer Press

President Bush will visit Maplewood on Thursday to tout some of the initiatives he will outline in his State of the Union address tonight, White House spokesman Allen Abney announced Monday.

The Maplewood appearance will be “part of him going out across the country to follow up on initiatives that he discusses” in his nationally televised speech, Abney said. No further details about the Maplewood stop were available.
Other stops on Bush’s post-speech tour, Abney said, are Nashville on Wednesday and Albuquerque and Dallas on Friday.

Bush is expected to focus on health care, illegal immigration and the nation’s international economic competitiveness in this year’s State of the Union address.

While the White House did not say where he would visit in Maplewood, the city is the home of 3M Co., the manufacturing giant that posted sales last year of $21 billion. 3M officials declined to comment and directed inquiries to the White House.

The Maplewood visit will be Bush’s 17th stop in Minnesota as president. During his last visit, he raised more than $1 million for U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy’s Senate campaign Dec. 9 during a two-hour stop in Minneapolis. In June, he launched a nationwide campaign in Maple Grove to educate the public about Medicare’s new prescription drug benefit.

The visit comes as Bush is slumping in public opinion polls in Minnesota. The most recent poll, conducted Jan. 13-15 by

SurveyUSA, showed 56 percent of Minnesotans disapproved of the president’s job performance while 39 percent approved.