At a campaign stop in Daytona Beach, Florida on 16 October 2004, President George W. Bush turned a routine policy statement into an awkward on-stage reversal, appearing to contradict himself three times on the question of military conscription.
Bush's aides had tipped reporters beforehand to listen for fresh wording in his standard rebuttal of Democratic rival John Kerry's warnings that the Iraq war had stretched US forces thin enough to make a draft inevitable. Florida, one of roughly a dozen contested states heading into the 2 November vote, was a high-stakes venue for what followed.
After opening with a firm declaration that the all-volunteer military would stay intact, Bush accidentally said the opposite, implying conscription was coming. He caught himself mid-sentence and corrected the slip: "We will not have a draft," he told supporters.
The president, whose verbal stumbles had become a familiar feature of public appearances, then pivoted to offense. He argued that Kerry and congressional Democrats were the only figures who had ever backed conscription, and that voting for him was the surest way to prevent one.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in October 2004, in its own words.