Cheney, Edwards prepare for debate as race tightens

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Vice President Dick Cheney will square off with his Democratic rival John Edwards in a televised debate that suddenly takes on importance for the Republicans after George W. Bush`s tepid showing last week.
Political analysts agree that vice presidential debates, which go back to 1976, usually have little impact on the race for the White House since voters cast their ballots strictly for the man at the top.
But the stakes will be higher in Tuesday`s encounter in the midwestern city of Cleveland, coming five days after Bush suffered a clear defeat at the hands of Senator John Kerry in the first of their three debates.
Republicans said Cheney would seek to repair the damage from the Democrat`s relentless attacks on the Iraq war and renew the focus on Bush`s leadership after the September 11, 2001 strikes.
The 63-year-old political veteran was also likely to highlight his knowledge and experience, and portray Edwards, a freshman senator from North Carolina, as part of a Democratic team unfit to command the war on terror.
Kerry campaign spokesman Joe Lockhart, speaking to reporters in a conference call, made it clear that Edwards would call on his skills as a trial lawyer to take the offensive against Cheney and Bush.
He said Edwards would hold the White House "accountable for their record from everything to squeezing the middle class while taking care of the powerful and the well connected to the failed energy plan and to the mess that we are in in Iraq."
The 51-year-old Democrat was ready to skewer Cheney as the architect of the administration`s security policies that produced chaos in Iraq but led to windfall reconstruction contracts for his former company, Halliburton, Lockhart said.
Vice presidential debates have traditionally been written off as side shows to the campaign. retired vice admiral James Stockdale, the running mate of independent candidate Ross Perot in 1992, famously asked in his opening statement: "Who am I? Why am I here?"
But one of the few debates to make a difference might have been Cheney`s 2000 meeting with Senator Joseph Lieberman, where he was able to reassure voters of the Republican ticket`s depth and gravitas.
A poll released Monday by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that Edwards had a better image among voters than Cheney.
Thirty-eight percent rated him favorably and 31 percent unfavorably; 37 percent had a positive view of Cheney and 42 percent were negative.
Bush and Kerry meanwhile battled over science, taxes and Iraq.
The two rivals were tied in their race for the White House, each with 47 percent support among registered voters, a new New York Times/CBS News poll showed Tuesday.
After signing legislation extending tax cuts, Bush said in the key up-for-grabs state of Iowa that Kerry would raise taxes on the US middle class and warned that his foreign policy would be "dangerous for world peace."
Wooing voters in the battleground state of New Hampshire, Kerry accused Bush of choosing to "sacrifice science for extreme right-wing ideology" by restricting the use of government funds for stem-cell research.
The two presidential candidates, next scheduled to face off in person on Friday, sized up polls showing Kerry clawing even with the Republican on the strength of his showing Thursday in their first of three televised debates.
Two polls showed Bush clinging to a modest lead after the televised encounter, but three others called the race a virtual dead heat less than a month before the November 2 election.
Bush, who lost Iowa by a hair in 2000, has a razor-thin edge there. Kerry and the president look tied in New Hampshire, which narrowly went to Bush in 2000.
The Kerry campaign kept up the pressure on Monday, publishing a list of more than 180 former US ambassadors endorsing the Democrat, out of concern over the administration`s foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Bush redoubled his efforts to discredit Kerry as a potential commander in chief, pointing to the senator`s vote against the 1991 Gulf War to oust Saddam Hussein`s forces from Kuwait.
"The policies of my opponent are dangerous for world peace. If they were implemented they would make this world not more peaceful, but more dangerous," Bush told cheering supporters in Clive, Iowa.
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.