Bush, Kerry race from final debate to court voters

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, Oct 14 (AFP) - Each claiming momentum from their final debate, US President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry on Thursday set their sights on battleground states just 19 days before the election.
Kerry all but erased Bush's lead over the course of their three 90-minute exchanges, and with national polls showing them deadlocked, the race shifted to a handful of up-for-grabs states that will decide the November 2 election.
In Nevada, the Democratic senator was to give a speech to a powerful and politically active senior citizens lobby, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), which claims some 36 million members nationwide.
Kerry was to leave the balmy southwestern state later and head east to Iowa, a heartland state some analysts said he must win to claim the White House, accusing Bush at each stop of turning his back on the US middle class.
The president was to skip the AARP gathering, but hold a rally here with Republican governors, address another group of supporters in Reno, Nevada, then campaign in the northwestern state of Oregon.
Despite a series of snap polls showing more viewers believed Kerry won Wednesday's debate, both sides claimed victory in the 90-minute televised slug-fest on Iraq, health care, the economy, abortion, and other issues.
The president accused Kerry of being weak on terrorism and uncertain on Iraq; favoring higher taxes and government-run health care; and sitting on "the far-left bank" of US politics.
Kerry countered that Bush had let Osama bin Laden slip away because of his focus on Iraq; abandoned the US middle class in favor of cutting taxes on the richest Americans; and short-changed efforts to secure US borders.
National polls have shown the two candidates running neck and neck, with just a handful of battleground states truly up for grabs in the race to secure the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House.
Undecided voters tend to break for the challenger, because people have usually made their mind up about the incumbent.
In snap polls after the debate, 52 percent of those polled by CNN said Kerry came out ahead in Tempe, compared to 39 percent who said the same about Bush.
A survey by ABC News showed Kerry ahead 42 percent to 41 percent, while a CBS News poll gave him 39 percent to 25 percent for Bush and 36 percent called the debate a tie.
The debate focused on their stark differences on issues like health care, job creation, tax cuts, and abortion, but a day later aides from both sides were still talking about Kerry's reference to Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter.
Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, blasted the Democrat at a post-debate rally as "not a good man" and said bringing up Mary Cheney was "a cheap and tawdry political trick."
Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer pointed out that the vice president has mentioned his daughter and her sexual orientation while campaigning, and said Republicans sought to manufacture outrage to draw attention from other issues.
"The reason they're doing this is to distract from the fact that Bush has done so much to hurt middle-America," Singer told AFP by telephone.
The remarks came when, in the context of discussing whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry, the candidates were asked whether they believed that being gay was a choice.
"We're all God's children, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as," Kerry replied.
The two sides also battled on Iraq, where the Democrat said the president "rushed us into a war" and "pushed alliances away" with the result that "we are not as safe as we ought to be."
Bush, seizing on a Kerry interview, charged that his rival had "talked about how terrorism could be reduced to a 'nuisance,' comparing it to prostitution, illegal gambling. I think that attitude and that point of view is dangerous."
The Democrat said it was Bush who did not take terrorism seriously, pointing to Bush's comments six months after the September 11 attacks that he was unconcerned about bin Laden.
"Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations," responded Bush.
Within moments, Kerry's campaign sent reporters a quotation from a March 13, 2002 press conference in which the president said of bin Laden: "I truly am not that concerned about him."
Bush attacked Kerry for voting for tax increases and against tax cuts while backing government spending increases, and concluded: "You know, there's a mainstream in American politics -- and you sit right on the far-left bank."
In a response that drew laughter from the crowd, Kerry likened Bush to a television series mafia boss, saying: "Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country."
The two collided on abortion, with Kerry calling it a choice "between a woman, God and her doctor" and Bush vowing to promote "a culture of life."