DUBUQUE, Iowa, Oct 26 (AFP) - President George W. Bush and challenger John Kerry traded blows over Iraq and taxes Tuesday as they scrambled for votes in the final week of their presidential race.
On a four-stop, day-long bus tour through Wisconsin and Iowa, Bush kept up attacks on Kerry's national security credentials but placed a special focus on economic policies -- defending his tax cuts and attacking Kerry's proposals.
Kerry, in Las Vegas, Nevada, unleashed a fresh attack on the president over a huge cache of deadly high explosives missing in Iraq.
He also pounded Bush on a report that the administration will request 70 billion dollars in new funding for Iraq and Afghanistan next year, asking, "How much more will the American people have to pay?"
Exactly one week before polling day, Kerry roasted Bush over the disappearance of 350 tonnes of high explosives in Iraq, which had injected a new knot of contention into an already bruising campaign on Monday.
"What did the president have to say about the missing explosives? Not a word. Complete silence," Kerry said, a day after Bush failed to mention the controversy in campaign appearances.
"My opponent promises to raise their taxes and, unfortunately for our small-business owners, that's a promise most politicians tend to keep," Bush told supporters crowded into an ice hockey rink in Onalaska, Wisconsin.
"The bottom line about our economic visions is this: To pay for all his new spending he's proposed, my opponent will have to raise taxes not just on small-business owners, but on everyone who's ever worked for a small business, shopped at a small business or walked by a small business," he quipped.
Bush meanwhile got a boost from the West Coast with word that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would be campaigning alongside him in the critical state of Ohio next Friday.
With polls showing the race tight, the Republican president and his Democratic rival kicked off the last seven days of campaigning through the Midwest.
Kerry concentrated on national security, which polls show is uppermost in voters' minds. He said Bush had over the past four years "failed to make America as safe and secure as we should be."
Tracking surveys by the Washington Post and Rasmussen group put Kerry ahead by a point or two; the Los Angeles Times had the race even.
But Zogby International gave the president a three-point edge at 49-46 percent. The TIPP polling organization showed his lead widening in the last three days to eight points at 50-42 percent and Gallup placed it at 51-46 percent.
The numbers were murkier on the state level, where both sides were battling to stitch together the 270 electoral votes that decide the presidency. Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania drew most of the attention but remained too close to call.
The challenger's campaign has been boosted by the return of former president Bill Clinton, just seven weeks after critical heart surgery.
Clinton, wearing a Jewish skullcap and flanked by the US and Israeli flags, visited a Jewish temple in the wealthy seaside city of Boca Raton, Florida, to court Jewish voters also being wooed by the Republicans.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the security of Israel ... will be safe with John Kerry as president," he told an enthusiastic crowd of about 2,000 people on his second day of campaigning since his quadruple-bypass operation.
His Florida appearances aim largely at energizing black and Jewish voters, who traditionally cast their ballots for Democratic candidates. Kerry needs them to turn out massively in one of the election's pivotal states.
10/27/2004 01:46 GMT - AFP