HAMPTON, United States (AFP) - Science and taxes provided the latest battlefield for George W. Bush and John Kerry as they prepared to hand the spotlight in their newly tight presidential race to their vice-presidential partners.
Kerry accused the president of choosing to "sacrifice science for extreme right wing ideology" in curbing stem-cell research while Bush painted the Massachusetts senator as a serial tax raiser hurting middle-class families.
The two men pressed their forays into key swing states in the November 2 election with polls showing Kerry clawing his way even with the Republican on the strength of a masterful showing in Thursday's televised showing.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll had the two men tied at 49 percent among likely voters, wiping out an eight-point Bush advantage. A Newsweek magazine survey gave Kerry a three-point edge among registered voters.
Bush's tepid performance in the debate gave added importance to Tuesday's encounter between Vice President Dick Cheney and his Democratic counterpart, Senator John Edwards, in the midwestern city of Cleveland.
Commentators said Cheney would seek to repair the damage from Kerry's relentless attacks on the Iraq war and renew the focus on Bush's leadership after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes.
Edwards was likely to use his skills as a trial lawyer to skewer Cheney as the architect of the administration's failed security policies that led to windfall reconstruction contracts for his ex-company, Halliburton.
The Kerry campaign kept up the pressure Monday, publishing a list of more than 180 former US ambassadors endorsing the Democrat out of concern over the admministration's foreign policies.
Bush and Kerry will square-off Friday in the second of their three debates in the midwestern city of St. Louis, Missouri. After a weekend of more sparring on the use of US military power, they turned their battle onto domestic turf.
Kerry was joined in the eastern city of Hampton, New Hampshire by actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, as he blasted Bush's decision to limit publicly funded research using stem cells from human embryos.
He said such studies could help find cures for diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes. "This president is making the wrong choice to sacrifice science for extreme right wing ideology," Kerry said in prepared remarks.
Kerry, who reissued a list of 48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists who endorsed his position, said he would lift "ideologically driven" restrictions on stem cell research and fund it with at least 100 million dollars a year.
Under pressure from religious groups, who see the practice as akin to abortion, Bush moved in August 2001 to bar the use of public funds for research using stem cells from human embryos after that date.
But his campaign reacted harshly Monday to suggestions he had instituted an outright ban. "These characterizations are inaccurate or incomplete, and misinform the public on the reality of the policy," a statement said.
The president, meanwhile, was traveling to the midwestern state of Iowa where he was to sign a new law extending tax relief for married couples, a tax credit for children and an expanded 10 percent tax rate for the lower-paid.
His campaign used the occasion to launch another tirade against Kerry, who has condemned the administration's multibillion-dollar tax cuts as designed mainly to benefit the wealthiest Americans and major US corporations.
It unveiled a new television advertisement, titled "Thinking Mom," that accuses Kerry and other left-wing members of Congress of voting 350 times for higher taxes, including increased levies on gasoline and Social Security benefits.
Women have become a key, coveted constitutency in the race and Iowa is particularly important as a state that went Democratic in the 2000 presidential race but is now tilting slightly towards Bush.
Kerry was scheduled to travel there later Monday.