Kerry on upper Midwest bus tour

DULUTH, Minn., July 2 (UPI) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry kicked off a Fourth of July weekend campaign bus tour of three Midwest swing states Friday near Duluth, Minn.

After a few days at his wife's farm in Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts senator was back on the hustings, riding a campaign bus in the upper Midwest from the rural community of Cloquet, Minn., to a political rally at a farm in Bloomer, Wis., in Chippewa County.

Wisconsin's Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Democratic congressmen David Obey and Ron Kind were expected at the rally to tout Kerry's vision for rural America.

Kerry scheduled visits with farmers in Trepeleau County, Wis., before heading to Dubuque, Iowa. The road trip winds up with a Fourth of July parade in Cascade, Iowa, a barbecue in Independence and fireworks in Dubuque and Cedar Rapids Sunday night, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said.

President George W. Bush made a bus tour of Iowa and Wisconsin along the upper Mississippi River in May.