CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry drilled behind closed doors ahead of the first of three debates that could decide their hard-fought battle for the White House.
Bush stayed out of sight at his sprawling Texas ranch, but was to campaign in the key battleground state of Ohio on Monday and later in the week travel to Florida, the state that decided the disputed 2000 election, for the face-off.
Kerry left his posh home in Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday for the midwestern US resort of Spring Green, Wisconsin, where he will conclude his preparations.
They were to square off Thursday over foreign policy and homeland security at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida before tens of millions of television viewers less than five weeks before the November 2 election.
The 90-minute debate will be their first head-to-head meeting in a campaign marked by increasingly bitter exchanges, particularly over Iraq and the war on terror launched by the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In what may be a preview of their first debate, Bush and Kerry sparred Sunday over the US leader's triumphant May 1, 2003 announcement that major combat was over in Iraq.
Bush said he would "absolutely" do it all again: land in a jet on a home-bound aircraft carrier and give his speech under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished."
"I flew out there, and said, 'Thanks. Thanks on behalf of a grateful nation.' You bet I'd do it again," Bush told Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" program in an interview, excerpts of which were released Sunday.
"It's unbelievable that George Bush said he would do it all over again," Kerry, countered at a campaign stop in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
"I'll never be a president who just says 'mission accomplished.' I will get (the) mission accomplished," said Kerry. "The president continues to live in a fantasy world of spin."
Polls show voter interest in the debates at its highest point since Bush's father and Bill Clinton drew an average 67 million viewers in three sessions in 1992 credited with helping to turn the outcome the Democrat's way.
The sides have left nothing to chance, squabbling over details like the temperature in the auditorium, the size of the lecterns, how far apart they would be, and whether they could ask direct questions of each other.
The Kerry camp agreed to the Bush team's demands -- including keeping the candidates three meters (10 feet) apart, so that the 1.93 meter (6 foot 4 inch) senator would not dwarf the 1.80 meter (5 foot 11 inch) president -- in return for holding three debates rather than two.
Ahead of the meticulously planned debate, The New York Times reported Sunday that Kerry's Democrats have outpaced Bush's Republicans in efforts to register new voters in the crucial battleground states of Ohio and Florida.
No advantage is too small: The candidates are locked in a neck-and-neck race nationally and fighting tooth and nail for an edge in the handful of states thought to be up for grabs.
Aware of the debates' importance, Bush started preparing over the summer and has even had full-length dress rehearsals, with Senator Judd Gregg, who played Al Gore in the 2000 debate preparations, standing in for Kerry, according to Time Magazine.
Analysts said televised debates, which date to 1960, were make-or-break affairs only when a major gaffe or stylistic flaw helped turn a tight race.
This year's sessions are key for Kerry, however.
"It's always more important for the challenger because he has to pass over the threshold that establishes you're an acceptable leader," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Both sides stuck by the election-year strategy of portraying their opponent as a fearsome debater and their own candidate as facing an uphill battle to dampening expectations of victory.
Kerry "was an all-star debater" in high school and at prestigious Yale University, and "he was 20 years in the most august debating society in the world, in the United States Senate," White House communications director Dan Bartlett told reporters as Bush held mock debates.
Bush "is ready to hold his own on Thursday night," said Bartlett. "Will president Bush, you know ... maybe not pronounce a word right? I bet he will. But I think, after the 90 minutes, there won't be any ambiguity about his positions."