Bitter presidential campaign nears end

By Larry Eichel
Knight Ridder Newspapers

TIM SLOAN / AFP/ GETTY IMAGES President Bush speaks at a rally in Miami yesterday. He also campaigned in Ohio and will visit six states today.

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The United States is not one of them.

As a result, the final hours of this sometimes bitter presidential marathon have become the occasion for one last, round-the-clock blitz of key states, sometimes closing with events after midnight.

This year, the candidates will be taking it relatively easy, at least compared to some past campaigns.

Democrat John Kerry — after spending yesterday in New Hampshire, Ohio and Florida — was scheduled to make three appearances today, with rallies in the Midwestern cities of Milwaukee, Detroit and Cleveland. But he won't be going home after that. He has an early event planned for tomorrow in Wisconsin.

President Bush, who was in Florida and Ohio yesterday, has a more grueling journey today. He'll start in Ohio, go to western Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and then make two stops in Iowa and one in New Mexico before winding up with a late-night rally in Dallas, his seventh event of the day.

	GERALD HERBERT / THE AP John Kerry speaks at a Dayton, Ohio, church yesterday. He'll be in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan today.

Those schedules, the comparative pace aside, tell you a number of things about how strategists for the two camps see the political landscape on the eve of the election:

Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa have emerged as key battlegrounds in the 2004 race.

Bush and the Republicans have hopes of carrying Pennsylvania; otherwise, the president wouldn't be returning to the state for the 44th time. Taking the state could make it virtually impossible for Kerry to win the presidency.

Kerry remains nervous about Michigan, a state thought to be solidly in his column a few weeks ago but where the polls now show a tight contest.

Neither side sees any point in following the example of past candidates in making a show of campaigning through the night.

Air of confidence

With their months of bashing and campaigning near an end, Bush and Kerry sought yesterday to offer hopeful visions for security and prosperity.

Bush, at a series of rallies in Florida, pitched himself as a president who could be trusted to win the war against terrorism and bolster the nation's sluggish economy. "I offer a record of leadership and results in a time of challenge," he said, "and I ask for your vote."

Kerry, in Manchester, N.H., pledged to provide a new direction that would improve the nation's standing in the world. "Are you ready for new leadership in the United States of America? Two more days and help is on the way."

Bush, Kerry today Bush events in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, New Mexico, Texas Kerry events in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio Reuters

While both campaigns expressed confidence, neither could point to clear evidence that victory was in hand, and new polls showed a tossup.

Each campaign was looking at an electoral map scrambled by the tightening polls, and each was fighting for every vote, especially in the Electoral College. That's why Kerry devoted much of yesterday to New Hampshire — a state Bush won in 2000 — despite that it has just four electoral votes.

Kerry aides, meanwhile, said their internal polls and voter-turnout efforts signal good news for the Democratic challenger tomorrow. "We are very confident that we are bringing this home," said Kerry communications strategist Mike McCurry.

The polls are problematic, Kerry aides said, particularly when it comes to identifying likely voters. Democrats are relying largely on an influx of new voters, the products of massive new-registration drives conducted all year.

"You get into really weird judgments," McCurry said. "A lot of these polls have really wide gyrations."

Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, predicted: "It's going to be close. It's always close."

Attacks continue

Close enough that some gamesmanship was in order.

Vice President Dick Cheney, for instance, was sent to Hawaii for a hastily arranged midnight Halloween rally when polls suddenly showed the traditionally Democratic state within GOP reach.

Though reaching out to the dwindling number of undecided voters, both campaigns said final voter-turnout efforts would be decisive. Both parties began door-to-door pushes aided by computerized voting lists, sophisticated phone banks and a final flurry of targeted mailings.

That's why each candidate, while preaching optimism, spared no attack on the opponent.

Bush tweaked his stump speech, declaring that nothing less than "the future safety and prosperity of America are on the ballot."

"Ultimately," he told supporters in Miami, "this election comes down to who can you trust."

He continued to portray his Democratic challenger as an indecisive, liberal senator from Massachusetts who has already entered the "Flip-flop Hall of Fame."

	JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry showed up to protest during a campaign rally for President Bush yesterday in Miami, Fla. Kerry also campaigned yesterday in Florida, one of the key battleground states in the election.

Kerry, starting yesterday with remarks at Shiloh Baptist Church in Dayton, Ohio, did not mention the president by name, though he did question politicians who make "values" a large part of their agenda.

"I don't see them, when they talk about family values, actually valuing families," Kerry said, citing tax cuts that tilt toward the wealthy and bemoaning cutbacks in after-school programs and children's health care.

Earlier, the Democratic candidate attended Mass at Dayton's Church of the Holy Angels. Catholic leaders have criticized the candidate for his support of abortion rights and expanded embryonic stem-cell research. Kerry received warm applause from the congregation, though one woman left the service, saying: "I won't spend a moment with that man."

In Manchester, Kerry delivered his two main attacks on the Bush administration, saying it favors the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and that the invasion of Iraq has alienated allies and damaged efforts to fight global terrorism.

"The world is waiting for us to lead again," he said.

Kerry ended the day with a late-night rally in Tampa, Fla.

For a second straight day, he did not mention a new taped message from Osama bin Laden. Campaign aides, who had expressed concern that a renewed emphasis on terrorism might tilt some last-second deciders to Bush, said they didn't think the tape would have much impact.

Sweeping the Sunshine State with his brother, Jeb, the governor, Bush sought a large victory margin that would stave off a recount like the one that held up final election results for more than a month four years ago.

"No doubt in my mind," he said, "we'll carry Florida again and win a great victory on Tuesday."

The president also appealed directly to the state's large number of Cuban-American voters with a barrage against the Communist regime of Fidel Castro.

"We will keep the pressure on until the Cuban people enjoy the same freedoms in Havana they receive here in America," Bush said. "I strongly believe the people of Cuba should be free from the tyrant."

In all, the tickets campaigned in seven states yesterday, mastering the seemingly impossible trick of appearing to be multiple places at once, making voters in every state feel as though they were the most important of all.

Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, campaigned in Florida and Ohio, while Iowa welcomed both Edwards and Cheney. Michigan, New Mexico and Pennsylvania also hosted one of the four principals from the 2004 ticket.

Last-day strategy

Whether the final-day dashes perform any useful function — other than to deprive each candidate of what is left of his voice — is far from clear.

Some campaign strategists in individual states consider a final-day visit an unwelcome distraction. Their theory is that staff and volunteer time would be better spent getting out the vote than staging one last rally.

But it's hard to persuade a candidate to move at anything other than breakneck speed in the final hours. No defeated politician wants to be thinking the result might have been different had he made one more stop.

The tradition of late-campaign travel madness dates back at least as far as 1960.

That year, Republican Richard Nixon closed his campaign with a 7,170-mile, 36-hour trip that started in Los Angeles on the final Sunday afternoon. He made stops in Alaska (he'd promised to get to all 50 states), Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois before returning to California.

Democrat John Kennedy, who defeated Nixon, kept up a similar pace but covered shorter distances. His final 48-hour itinerary: Waterbury, Wallingford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, all in Connecticut; Suffolk County, N.Y.; Teaneck, Jersey City and Newark, N.J.; Lewiston, Maine; Providence, R.I.; Springfield, Mass; Burlington, Vt.; Manchester, N.H.; and finally Boston.

Both men were pretty much done, though, by midnight Monday. The first candidate to keep going into Tuesday morning was Democrat Michael Dukakis in 1988, who, after a rally in Los Angeles late Monday, had a predawn event in Iowa and a morning one in Detroit before going home to Boston.

Dukakis was trounced by George H.W. Bush, whose more-leisurely final day covered three Midwestern states and a closing rally in Houston.

Bill Clinton started the final day of his successful 1992 campaign at the Mayfair Diner in Northeast Philadelphia before embarking on a 30-hour, nine-city, 4,100-mile marathon that included post-midnight events in McAllen and Fort Worth, Texas, and Denver before ending in Little Rock, Ark.

In 2000, Gore began in Iowa, journeyed to Missouri and made two stops in Michigan before flying to Florida. There, he attended a star-studded, 12:30 a.m. rally in Miami and addressed campaign workers in Tampa at 4 a.m.

As it turned out, Gore lost Florida anyway, albeit by the slimmest of margins and in the strangest manner possible.

Perhaps that's why Kerry and Bush have decided to get at least a few hours of sleep the night before Election Day: They know Election Night could last for a month.

Material from The Dallas Morning News is included in this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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