Bush, Kerry press key battles in swing states

AKRON, Ohio -- President Bush and Senator John F. Kerry campaigned intensely along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border yesterday, the start of an all-out push to Election Day, as a second national poll indicated Bush had jumped to a strong lead.

A Newsweek poll, like a Time magazine poll released Friday, indicated that Bush led Kerry by 11 percentage points after the Republican National Convention in New York Thursday, the first clear edge in this closely contested race. Bush advisers reacted cautiously to the results, predicting their lead was slimmer but solid. Kerry advisers said that Bush was probably ahead because of the afterglow of a generally successful convention but insisted that they enjoy a host of advantages in key battleground states. The advisers added that they have devised a better strategy to tap voter unease with Bush and energize Kerry's base.

"They're going to get a bounce out of the convention, but we'll be coming back," the Massachusetts senator told one supporter during a visit to an Edinburg, Ohio, farm yesterday for a few rounds of trapshooting.

Bush and Kerry have approached the fall election season with dueling strategies that reflect Republican optimism that they can keep Kerry on the defensive and Democratic confidence that job losses and the Iraq war will help them steal some states from Bush.

For the moment, momentum seems to favor Bush. Members of his inner circle said yesterday that they envisioned a tantalizing possibility: seizing the lead and refusing to let Kerry regain ground in the 58 days left, and running an offense through at least the end of September to widen gains in battleground states such as Missouri, West Virginia, and Arizona.

If Bush can move those states into his column, he can concentrate on states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, which Democrat Al Gore narrowly captured in 2000.

"I don't know about 11 points," Karen Hughes, a Bush campaign communications strategist, said of the separate polls in Time and Newsweek. But, she added, "I think we're probably ahead."

The Bush team has been displaying a new level of confidence in the last two days: The president did not challenge the premise of a question about a prospective second term yesterday, saying he hoped that his legacy in 2008 is that "after eight years of the presidency, the country is more secure." Senior strategist Karl Rove and campaign manager Ken Mehlman circulated among reporters at several stops, appearances they almost never make when things are going poorly.

Inside the Kerry camp, meanwhile, the fundamental assumption of his political strategy is that the race is tied nationally but that Democrats have the edge going forward. Of the states Gore won in 2000, Kerry advisers contend, Bush is mounting a ground operation and spending money to stage a serious challenge only in Wisconsin, which Gore won by about 5,000 votes out of about 2.6 million; Kerry is devoting resources to Missouri, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, and West Virginia, forcing the GOP to spend time and money to hold onto those states.

"We're very competitive in enough places to win this race, and to win this race by a pretty decent margin," said a senior Kerry adviser working on election-map strategy. "Our internal numbers show that in several battlegrounds that Bush won in 2000, there are many voters who are still undecided, don't think the country is going in the right direction, and have a higher favorable opinion of Kerry than Bush. We just have to make the sale to these people."

Kerry has announced a $50 million ad campaign for the fall in those five states and 15 others, including Colorado and Florida, where closely contested Senate races are expected to drive unprecedented Democratic turnout. Kerry believes he can prevent Bush from holding onto at least New Hampshire and pick up one or two other small states, such as Nevada, that would be enough for victory.

"At the end of the day, this race is tied," said Steve Elmendorf, one of Kerry's deputy campaign managers. "I think they'll be facing a high-decibel, high-intensity level through the campaign," he said of taking the fight to the Bush camp.

Asked how much time Kerry would spend this fall in the 20 battleground states identified by his campaign, Elmendorf said, "All the time. That's where the election seems to be, and of those states, some will become more competitive and some will become less competitive."

Kerry rallied 15,000 cheering supporters in a baseball stadium in Akron yesterday with a lacerating attack on Bush's economic stewardship and what the senator's campaign contends is the loss of 1.6 million jobs overall under his presidency.

"They're trying to fake it to the American people. They're trying to bamboozle you and throw around so much mud that you can't really break through and grab onto things that are real in our lives," Kerry said.

"You'd think a compassionate conservative or a compassionate government would actually reach out and say we're going to help you with your health care, we're going to help you with your unemployment," Kerry said. "But oh no, not this crowd, they're the first administration not to extend unemployment benefits when people needed it. . . . We got to tell them on Nov. 2, you're four years too late, and it's over."

The Midwest has emerged as the chief battleground terrain for both rivals. Kerry advisers believe that Bush's strength in the Time and Newsweek polls emanate from his energized base in the South and West, with votes remaining up for grabs in swing states such as Ohio, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Aides to Bush see substantial gains in this region, and have mapped out a short-term strategy to pressure Kerry by quickly sewing up states that they won four years ago.

One is Missouri, an increasingly conservative stronghold that Bush captured by three percentage points in 2000 but that his strategists seek to move into the win column soon. As he did in 2000, Bush is focusing on the rural and white religious voters outside Missouri's metropolitan areas who can counter heavy African-American turnout in Democratic cities. Bush heads to Missouri tomorrow for an all-day bus tour Tuesday.

Kerry advisers say they are using similar benchmarks for success in September, aiming to fortify states they believe they need to win -- such as Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington -- by the time of the first presidential debate, which is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 30.

"The goal for September is to solidify most of our base states and play on the turf that they won," said the Kerry adviser working on electoral mapping.

Ohio is another immediate target for Bush. Campaign officials believe they can blunt the impact of bad economic news in the state with a "jobs and economy" message. At a town hall-style event outside Cleveland yesterday, Bush repeatedly portrayed Kerry as a tax-and-spend Democrat who would worsen the state's economic outlook with higher tax rates. "He's not going to be taxing anybody in '05, because he's not going to win," Bush said at the Brecksville Broadview Heights High School. "We're going to win Ohio."

Hughes, Bush's communications strategist for a decade, described Kerry as having fallen off course in recent days, especially with his late-night appearance on Thursday after Bush's convention speech, which she described as "midnight rantings" and a "big overreaction."

"You have to learn to take things in stride" when you are the president, Hughes said, describing Bush as "very patient and very sanguine about the process."

Kerry has been determined to project an image of feistiness that has materialized in his past political races when he has been down in polls. "We're going to take the wood to them over the course of these next two months. We're going to show the difference in this party," he told his Akron audience yesterday.

Healy reported with Kerry, Kornblut with Bush. Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com.