As days count down, rivals amplify verbal assault

SAGINAW, Mich. -- With the presidential race growing more biting by the hour, President Bush unleashed a personal attack on his rival's character yesterday, calling Senator John Kerry ''the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time."

Kerry hammered Bush for a fourth straight day over missing explosives in Iraq, saying the president should be fired for ''shifting explanations" and for failing to own up to his wartime mistakes.

Behind the scenes, as the candidates barreled into the final weekend before Election Day, operatives waged a fierce battle over television advertisements, endorsements, and voter activity. Late yesterday, Kerry advisers seized on revelations the Bush media team had doctored an image in an 11th-hour ad, touching off a new round in the debate over which side has stretched the truth most.

Each candidate campaigned in multiple states, and both appeared in states that polls show are leaning toward the Democrat: Bush in Michigan, Kerry in Ohio. Both orchestrated massive events designed to convey an aura of victory: Kerry wore a Red Sox cap and brought rock star Bruce Springsteen along on two stops, while Bush packed auditoriums in Saginaw and reveled in an endorsement from Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling.

But both campaigns also showed discernible worry about the race, still far too close to call, with voting already underway in many states and just five days left to persuade the undecided few.

The central dispute between the campaigns centered around a cache of explosives that disappeared from a military depot near Baghdad at some point -- either before the war, as the Bush people maintained, or in its chaotic aftermath, as was suggested in news reports seized upon by the Kerry campaign this week.

Bush tried to go on the offensive, turning Kerry's steady attacks over the missing weapons into an argument that he is unfit to lead the military. At an outdoor rally in Westlake, Ohio, the president heightened his attack on Kerry for making accusations before the facts are in.

''This week Senator Kerry showed his willingness to put politics ahead of the facts and the troops," Bush said at the rally, flanked by veterans including General Tommy Franks and former senator Bob Dole.

''He criticized the military's handling of explosives in Iraq, when his own advisers admitted they did not know what had happened," Bush continued. ''His spokesman has now had to acknowledge that the explosives may have been moved before our troops got to Iraq. A president needs to get all the facts before jumping to politically motivated conclusions. The senator's willingness to trade principle for political convenience makes it clear that John Kerry's the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time."

Kerry fired back that, by Bush's own standard, he should not be reelected.

Responding for the first time to Bush's statement Wednesday that the Democrat was making ''wild charges" about the missing weapons and was unqualified to be president because he ''jumps to conclusions" without firm evidence that the explosives were stolen after US troops were in the country.

''Well Mr. President, I agree with you. George Bush jumped to conclusions about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. George Bush jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction and he rushed to war without a plan to win the peace," Kerry said in Toledo. ''According to George Bush's own words, he shouldn't be our commander in chief, and I couldn't agree more."

Deriding Bush's defense of the Iraq mission -- and more broadly, Bush's tendency to not publicly admit mistakes -- Kerry accused Bush of not living up to a standard set by President John F. Kennedy after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

''This president believes the buck stops everywhere but with the president of the United States," Kerry told several thousand people at the University of Toledo.

''John Kennedy knew how to take responsibility for the mistake he made, and Mr. President, it is long since time for you to start taking responsibility for the mistakes that you've made," Kerry said to a roar of applause.

The political fallout from the missing weapons episode is still unclear, according to strategists on both sides.

Kerry advisers acknowledged their internal polling showed no perceptible shift of voters their way, despite four days of public statements about the missing cache.

Initially, Bush did not directly engage Kerry on his attack on the missing weapons for two days, but campaign aides said that was a strategic decision. The president only counterattacked after the ''story began to fall apart," said Nicolle Devenish, the Bush campaign's communications director.

Kerry's continued use of the issue is turning off undecided voters, many of whom believe he would say anything to get elected, and the president is now taking advantage of that, Devenish said.

Elsewhere, the Democrats suddenly began targeting Arkansas, long considered safe for Bush but where recent independent polls have showed the race tightening.

The Democratic National Committee was scheduled to begin airing radio and television ads last night in the state, which has six electoral votes that went to Bush in 2000.

Former president Bill Clinton and Wesley Clark, the retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate, are both scheduled to campaign in their home state this weekend. The Bush campaign is also set to air advertisements there.

Karl Rove, Bush's top White House political strategist, said he isn't concerned about winning the state, but the campaign has more money than it can spend by Tuesday, and he figured ads in Arkansas would prompt Democrats to redirect more resources there.

Brian C. Mooney and Anne E. Kornblut of the Globe staff also contributed to this report. Klein is traveling with the Bush campaign, and Healy is traveling with the Kerry campaign.