Kerry, Bush showcase wits to clinch last votes
AS campaign time runs out fast on the White House contenders, Democratic candidate John Kerry is accusing President George W. Bush of hiding bad decisions, a criticism aimed at undermining voters' confidence in their chief executive.
Bush on the other hand is inviting Democrats to cross over to his campaign in the final campaign week, arguing that their party is no longer led by men of strength and resolve.
One sign Kerry lacks the lustre of Democrats past, claims the Bush campaign, is the re-emergence of former President Bill Clinton, who rallied voters for Kerry after being sidelined for weeks by heart surgery.
Kerry yesterday accused Bush of keeping secrets from United States (U.S.) voters, exactly one week before the election.
Both men started their day in Wisconsin but while Bush focused on the economy, Kerry again criticised his rival's handling of the war in Iraq.
He berated Bush for not discussing a missing cache of explosives and queried what else he was not talking about.
With the race still so close, the final campaigning is getting yet more bitter.
In a second day of blistering attacks, Kerry again focused on reports about the 350 metric tons of explosives that went missing after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"What did the president have to say about the missing explosives? Not a word. Complete silence," Kerry said in Green Bay.
He then quoted a Washington Post report that the Bush administration would seek new funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We have learned that the president wants an additional $70 billion of your money by early next year for Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the total cost to $225 billion," Kerry said.
"Mr President, what else are you being silent about? What else are you keeping from the American people? How much more will the American people have to pay?"
The non-partisan organisation Factcheck.org says Kerry has consistently overstated the amount actually spent on the Iraq war to date.
While Bush has not commented on the missing materials, his aides seized on another news report that the explosives were missing when U.S. forces arrived at the Iraqi base the day after the fall of Baghdad.
However, it remains unclear if the stockpile had already been stolen or just not found at that time.
"When the president is faced with the consequences of his own bad decisions, he doesn't confront them, he tries to hide them," Kerry said. "The truth is, President Bush isn't levelling with the American people about why we went to war, how the war is going, or what he is doing to put Iraq on track."
And Kerry broadened the attack to declare: "Just as he has been warned about his mistakes in Iraq, George Bush has been warned time and time again about the vulnerability of our homeland security."
Kerry said he would spend an additional $60 billion over 10 years on homeland security, using the money to screen cargo for nuclear materials at ports and borders, add border patrol agents and more.
Kerry left Wisconsin to travel to Nevada, New Mexico and Iowa yesterday, while Bush was spending most of his day in Wisconsin.
Bush, meanwhile, appealed to conservative Democrats in his first of three rallies during a bus trip in Wisconsin, a state he lost by just 5,708 votes in the 2000 election.
He told supporters in Onalaska that Kerry's career in the Senate showed he was not part of the Democratic Party of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy.
"With that record, he stands in opposition not just to me, but to the great tradition of the Democratic Party," he said, repeating a criticism touted before voters in Iowa on Monday.
Nationally, opinion polls show Bush with a slight - but statistically insignificant - lead over Kerry, though that position is reversed in some of the battleground states.
A new Gallup poll for CNN/USA Today showed Bush may have a slight lead but that the election is still too close to call -- 51 per cent of likely voters back Bush and 46 per cent Kerry. But with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, the race leader was "unclear".
Clinton -- looking thinner but smiling broadly -- made his first public appearance on Monday since undergoing quadruple bypass heart surgery seven weeks ago, to add star power to the sometimes monotone Kerry campaign.
"From time to time I have been called the comeback kid," the politically savvy former president told a rally of cheering supporters. "In eight days John Kerry is going to make America the comeback country."
The Democrats hope to use Clinton's enormous popularity among minorities and other constituencies, as well as his eight-year record of economic prosperity and fiscal prudence, to solidify Kerry's base and reach out to swing voters.
Clinton ticked off a litany of alleged Bush administration failings on jobs, taxes, health care and foreign policy, and sought draw to draw a sharp contrast between Kerry and the Republicans.
"Our friends on the other side want a world where they concentrate wealth and power on the far right, do what they want to when they can and co-operate with others only when they have to," he said.
Clinton, who later flew to Miami for a get-out-the-vote rally, told ABC television he was throwing himself into the campaign because it was so close.
"I think this is one of the most difficult elections to call I have ever seen," said Clinton.
Bush, who lost Wisconsin and its 10 electoral votes by only 5,708 ballots in 2000, was focusing his efforts in Democratic-leaning reaches of the state.
Warming up for that task in his last stop on Monday in Davenport, Iowa, Bush ditched his single-focus, national security speech of earlier events in favour of a broader pitch, praising the traditions of the Democratic Party.
"The party of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and John Kennedy is rightly remembered for confidence and resolve in times of war and in hours of crisis," Bush said. "Senator Kerry has turned his back on 'pay any price' and 'bear any burden.'
"And he has replaced those commitments with 'wait and see' and 'cut and run.' Many Democrats in this country do not recognise their party any more. And today, I want to speak to every one of them: If you believe that America should lead with strength and purpose and confidence in our ideals, I would be honoured to have your support, and I'm asking for your vote."
Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, spoke dismissively of Clinton's scene-stealing pairing with Kerry. Seven weeks after quadruple bypass heart surgery, Clinton joined Kerry at a Philadelphia rally that packed cheering supporters shoulder-to-shoulder along three city blocks.
"They had to roll Clinton out of the operating room and onto the campaign trail in order to basically help Kerry with the weaknesses he has among core Democratic constituencies," Rove said, taking liberties with his depiction of the former president as a near-invalid.
"This is not an appeal to swing voters," Rove said. "This is an appeal to the hard-core base of the Democratic Party, which is unenthusiastic about Senator Kerry."
Kerry had another four-state day lined up, one taking him more than 3,000 miles from Green Bay to Las Vegas, to Albuquerque, New Mexico and then Sioux City, Iowa. His campaign plotted a four-day marathon to close out his campaign.
Kerry hit the theme that Bush is not being straight with people when he spoke to about 1,000 supporters in Warren, Michigan, on Monday night.
"We need a fresh start in America," Kerry said. "We need a fresh start in Iraq. We need a president who will look the American people in the eye always and tell you the truth and trust you with the truth."
Rove declared the GOP base solid and motivated, and he laid out Bush's challenge this way:
"How do we persuade people who have historically not been inclined to vote? How do we take people who have moved into a rapidly growing area, and how can we get swing Democrats and swing independents to come over for us? You'll see that as part of everything that we do from here on out."
Bush and Kerry are competing head-on for a distinct set of battleground states - Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida among them - but other states are getting a second look, too, because of signs of fluidity.
Polls found a tightening race in Arkansas, which Bush won in 2000 and the Democrats had not seen as a serious prospect this time. New Hampshire, narrowly won by Bush in 2000, seemed to be moving Kerry's way in the final stretch.
On the other side, the contest in Hawaii was unexpectedly close, prompting the Democrats to advertise there to fend off a Bush advance.
In the nerve-racking finale, both sides watched for developments beyond the control of their play books, including the announcement by Supreme Court officials that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, is undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer and is expected to return to work next week.
Kerry delicately sought advantage in reminding Americans that the next president will probably nominate more than one justice to a closely divided court.
"We know that two or three justices will be retiring in the next years," he said in a call with black church leaders. "The Supreme Court is at stake. Affirmative action was decided by one vote. The presidency of the United States was decided by one vote."
