Kerry and Bush up the ante on campaign trail as contest stays close

GEORGE W Bush and John Kerry, their animosity stirred by last Friday’s contentious second debate, have intensified their attacks on each other over Iraq, jobs and debate performance in critical battleground states.

Mr Kerry “doesn’t pass the credibility test”, Mr Bush said on Saturday, while the Massachusetts senator claimed the nation’s choice “could really not have been more clear than it was last night”.

Instant polls did not give either Mr Bush or Mr Kerry a clear edge in Friday’s wide-ranging debate in St Louis before an audience of uncommitted voters, depicting either a tie or a slight edge for Mr Kerry.

But Republicans were heartened by what they saw as a steadier, more focused and aggressive performance by the president than in the first debate, where he displayed bouts of impatience and peevishness.

Mr Bush and Mr Kerry ventured into each other’s “must win” states, Mr Bush campaigning in Iowa and Minnesota and Mr Kerry in Ohio and Florida.

Democrat Al Gore won both Minnesota and Iowa in 2000, but polls show the race to be extremely close this year. Mr Bush won Ohio and Florida in 2000, and Republican strategists are hard pressed to see a Bush victory without carrying those two states, with their combined total of 47 electoral votes.

Both candidates sharply critiqued the other’s debate performance.

“The reason I thought he was making all those scowling faces was because he saw the latest job numbers,” Mr Kerry told about 10,000 people at a rally in this northeastern Ohio community. At another point, Mr Kerry joked that he was “a little worried ... I thought the president was going to attack (moderator) Charlie Gibson.”

Kerry advisers said he plans intense attacks in the coming days over domestic issues, including job losses, rising health care costs, and stem-cell research, in the run-up to Wednesday’s concluding debate in Tempe, Arizona.

In Florida, Mr Kerry criticised Mr Bush for saying in the debate that he won’t allow prescription imports from Canada because the drugs might really be from the Third World.

“I’ve heard some lame excuses, but I’ve never heard something like that from the president of the United States,” Mr Kerry said. He also said Mr Bush is failing to get help from other countries in Iraq, adding, “We need some adults running the foreign policy of the United States of America.”

Mr Bush, speaking to more than 7,000 supporters at a Waterloo, Iowa, baseball field, declared himself the winner of the debate and ridiculed Mr Kerry.

“With a straight face, he said, ‘I had only one position on Iraq’. I could barely contain myself. He must think we’ve been on another planet,” Mr Bush said.

Both sides worked to maximise weekend exposure in hopes of winning the post-debate “spin” battle to portray their respective candidate as the victor.

Bush senior adviser Karl Rove, in a rare on-the-record interview, continued to characterise the race as close, although he noted Mr Bush was making headway in several states that had gone for Gore in 2000.

Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart cast the final weeks of the campaign as a battle on Mr Kerry’s part for the middle class and on Mr Bush’s for “a much narrower group, those who are at the top end of the income scale.”