FORT MYERS, Florida, Oct 23 (AFP) - George W. Bush courted votes Saturday in Florida, the crucial swing state that delivered him the White House in 2000, as his opponent, Senator John Kerry, accused the president of using scare tactics to win reelection.
With 10 days to go until the November 2 presidential vote, a poll released Saturday by Newsweek magazine showed the Republican and Democratic rivals in a statistical dead heat.
Stepping up the already frenzied pace of the campaign, Bush spent the day seeking to energize his Republican faithful in four of the party's Florida strongholds.
At a rally in the western state of Colorado, Kerry accused Bush of letting Al-Qaeda terror mastermind Osama bin Laden slip "out the back door" and of waging a scare campaign to hold on to the White House.
Kerry was due in the southwestern state of New Mexico later in the day and was then to cross two time zones for rallies in Florida on Sunday.
In Fort Myers, Bush accused Kerry of being dangerously weak against terrorism, of changing his mind on whether Saddam Hussein was a threat and the war in Iraq was worth it, jokingly suggesting the Democrat had "election amnesia."
"We both have records. I am proudly running on mine. The senator's running from his, and there's a reason why: There is a mainstream in American politics, and my opponent sits on the far left bank," Bush said.
The Bush campaign also ramped up its stagecraft, having the president's official Marine One helicopter land in the outfield of the baseball arena where the rally was held, dazzling the pumped-up crowd.
The president and first lady Laura Bush emerged from the green and white chopper to a roar from the audience, as the theme music from the action film "Top Gun" played, and was introduced by his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Florida holds the richest haul of electoral votes of the dozen or so states that are up for grabs in the November 2 election, with 27. Two hundred and seventy are needed to win the White House.
Bush carried the state by just 537 votes in 2000, and campaign aides told reporters that they hoped to bring more supporters to the polls to "widen our margin."
Bush faces a jammed schedule: four election rallies in Florida Saturday, then a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) trip west to spend the night at his ranch in Texas before stumping in New Mexico Sunday.
Kerry, in Colorado probing what Democrats think could be a weak point in Bush's core support, hit back a day after his rival aired a menacing ad featuring prowling wolves which branded him weak on terror.
The senator from Massachusetts hammered away at Bush's claims that only he could be trusted to head off future terror attacks on the United States, saying the president let bin Laden escape in the Afghan mountains in 2001.
Kerry claimed Bush had called on Afghan warlords to hunt down bin Laden and not used US troops for the hazardous task, weeks after the September 11 attacks, a charge already denied by the Bush administration.
"Osama bin Laden just walked out the back door," he said at a rally here.
And Kerry hit back at claims by Bush that he has fundamentally misunderstood the battle against terrorism.
"The president keeps going around the country trying to scare people. He talks about only one thing, it's terrorism, the war on terrorism.
"I am prepared to have that fight because I can wage a better war on terrorism than George Bush has."
With the campaign in the final stretch, most polls have the race neck-and-neck.
In a Newsweek poll out Saturday, Bush and Kerry each drew the support of 46 percent of registered voters surveyed, with independent Ralph Nader netting two percent.
But among a more specific sample of likely voters, Bush led Kerry 48 percent to 46 percent, according to the magazine.
Bush gained on Kerry in a new Time magazine poll out Friday in which 51 percent of likely voters said they would vote for Bush, 46 percent for Kerry and two percent for independent consumer crusader Ralph Nader.
Bush also maintains a thin lead over Kerry in the decisive battle for electoral votes, according to a new CNN analysis that shows Bush earning 277 to Kerry's 261.
To win the White House, a candidate must amass 270 of 538 electoral votes doled out by states following the popular vote. Most states appoint electors on a winner-takes-all basis to the candidate who earns the majority of the direct popular vote in the state.
Nevada has just five electoral votes, Colorado has nine, and New Mexico has five, but the race is so tight this year that such "small" states could be decisive.
10/23/2004 17:58 GMT - AFP