LAS VEGAS, United States (AFP) - Each claiming momentum from their final debate, US President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry set their sights on key battleground states just 19 days before the election.
"Now it`s a sprint to the finish," Bush told reporters in a rare appearance aboard his Air Force One presidential plane, clinging to maverick Republican Senator John McCain. "My spirits are high, I`m enthusiastic about my chances."
Kerry all but erased Bush`s lead over the course of their three, 90-minute exchanges. 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 gave 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.
"We need a fresh start in this country of ours," Kerry said. "I believe we need a president who will fight for the great middle class and those struggling to join it."
The Democrat opened a 10-day blitz of seven up-for-grabs states -- Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Minnesota -- that may decide who gets the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House.
Bush ducked the AARP gathering but held a campaign rally here with Republican governors who helped him carry the disputed 2000 election, and spoke to another group of supporters in Reno, Nevada, before campaigning in the northwestern state of Oregon.
He was to campaign Friday in Iowa and Wisconsin, and spend Saturday scouring Florida for votes before returning to Washington. He was to try to erode Kerry`s lead in New Jersey on Monday, then return to Florida.
Despite a series of polls showing more viewers believed Kerry had won Wednesday`s debate, Bush also claimed victory in the 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 for the richest Americans; and short-changed efforts to secure US borders.
The Democrat`s camp pointed to a series of snap polls showing he won the third debate, saying Kerry had carried all three televised face-to-face confrontations and now had the edge going into the final straightaway.
The challenger seized on the Bush administration`s announcement of emergency measures to skirt a 7.38-trillion-dollar debt limit, as well as a record budget deficit for 2004 and plans to use pension money to keep the government running.
"George Bush continues to make history for all the wrong reasons: He`s the first president to go without creating a new job since the Great Depression and now he`s run up more debt in shorter period of time than all the presidents combined in the 200 years from Washington through Reagan," said Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer.
But Kerry found himself on the defensive as Republicans expressed anger about what they called his inappropriate reference to Vice President Dick Cheney`s lesbian daughter in response to a question about gay marriage.
Cheney`s wife, Lynne Cheney, said Kerry was "not a good man," the vice president described himself as "a pretty angry father" and charged that Kerry had shown he would "say and do anything in order to get elected."
"I love my daughters. They love their daughter. I was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with this issue," Kerry said in a statement, referring to gay marriage.
Facing a debate question about whether homosexuality was a choice, Kerry replied: "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."
At a campaign rally after the debate, Lynne Cheney blasted Kerry, saying "the only thing I could conclude is this is not a good man."
"I am speaking as a mom -- and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man -- what a cheap and tawdry political trick," she said.
Candidates` families are generally considered off-limits.
But Kerry aides noted that the vice president himself had mentioned his adult daughter`s homosexuality while on the campaign trail, and said the Republicans were using manufactured outrage to avoid discussing Bush`s record.
Still, it was not the first time that the Kerry camp had mentioned Mary Cheney, in response to a question about gay marriage: Democratic vice presidential hopeful John Edwards did so in his October 5 debate with Cheney.
"I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can`t have anything but respect for the fact that they`re willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her," Edwards said. "It`s a wonderful thing."
Offered a chance to challenge the Democrat, Cheney replied: "Let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate that, very much."