MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AFP) - Democrat John Kerry takes his quest for votes to the western states of Nevada and Colorado that polls show could be up for grabs in the presidential contest, as incumbent rival George W. Bush stumps in three eastern battleground states.
After addressing supporters here in the morning, Kerry was to fly to Reno, Nevada, and Pueblo, Colorado, in hopes of energizing minority voters, his core support base, ahead of the November 2 ballot.
Bush will campaign for a second day in Pennsylvania before moving on to Canton, Ohio and Saint Petersburg, Florida.
Kerry literally went hunting for the support of gun-lovers Thursday, then tapped the power of comic book and movie hero "Superman" to trade shots with the Republican president on health as the two scouted votes that could tilt a race still too close to call.
With every vote likely to count in the critical midwestern battleground of Ohio that Bush won in 2000, the often staid Kerry donned a camouflage jacket and picked up a shotgun to hunt geese in a carefully staged photo-op.
The Massachusetts senator emerged from a cornfield, shotgun breached and cradled in the crook of his elbow, flanked by companions holding four dead birds. Asked why he was not carrying one himself, he quipped, "Too lazy."
The event testified to the weight of the powerful National Rifle Association, which has endorsed Bush and pledged to spend up to 20 million dollars to mobilize its four million members against the pro-gun control Kerry.
Bush mocked Kerry's hunting trip while stumping in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
"He can run -- he can even run in camo -- but he cannot hide," said Bush, as the crowd laughed and cheered.
The line, without the reference to camouflage clothes, is one of Bush's favorite slogans in attacking Kerry.
The Democrat later switched hunting gear for a business suit to attend a rally with Dana Reeve, widow of the recently deceased Christopher Reeve, star of the "Superman" movies, to promote stem-cell research as a possible cure for spinal-cord injury.
Kerry lambasted Bush's opposition to stem-cell studies and criticized the president's overall approach to science. "He has an extreme political ideology that slows instead of advances science," the senator said.
"You get the feeling that if George Bush had been president during other periods in American history, he would have sided with the candle lobby against electricity, the buggy-makers against cars and typewriter companies against computers."
Bush was on his 40th trip to Pennsylvania, which he hoped to snatch out of the Democratic column, and took on Kerry over one of the challenger's supposed strengths, health care.
He told a rally in the town of Downingtown that Kerry "would move America down the road to federal control of health care which would lead to lower quality and health care rationing."
"When it comes to health care, Senator Kerry's prescription is bigger government with higher cost," Bush said. "My reforms will lower costs and give more control and choices to the American people."
Bush also met with the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali, in an attempt to woo Catholics, who represent about one fourth of the electorate and are present in key swing states.
Catholics voted narrowly Democratic four years ago. But the president, a born-again Methodist, took the majority of white Catholic votes in 2000 and leads among them this year.
Kerry, the first Catholic candidate for president since John F. Kennedy in 1960, has struggled to boost his share of the denomination's vote.
Several analysts suggested the race was heading towards the same nail-biting climax as in 2000, when the southeastern state of Florida handed the presidency to Bush by 537 votes after a recount dispute decided by the US Supreme Court.
Most national "tracking" polls showed Bush maintaining a statistically insignificant one-point lead over Kerry.
But a survey of likely voters produced by The Washington Post gave Bush 51 percent support, compared to Kerry's 45 percent. Independent candidate Ralph Nader had just one percent of the presumptive vote.
The challenger was holding his own in states such as Ohio and Florida, which went Republican four years ago.
The 2004 elections that involve not only the frenzied presidential race but hundreds of congressional races will cost Americans a record 3.9 billion dollars, according to new projections released in Washington by campaign finance monitors.
10/22/2004 - 11:41 GMT - AFP