Kerry, Bush trade barbs on homeland security

FINAL STRETCH

Kerry, Bush trade barbs on homeland security

By Glen Johnson and Rick Klein  |  October 25, 2004

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The presidential race entered its final full week yesterday with polls indicating Senator John F. Kerry leading in key battleground states, President Bush tied or slightly ahead nationally, and both sides arguing they can best provide the leadership America needs during the next four years.

Bush saw his campaign message sidetracked because of a comment he made in an interview that will air tonight on FOX News Channel. According to a prebroadcast transcript of that interview, Bush said the nation is safer under his leadership, but whether America can ever be entirely safe is ''up in the air."

''We have to be right 100 percent of the time in disrupting any plot, and they have to be right once," Bush said in the interview, which was filmed Saturday. ''Whether or not we can be ever fully safe is up -- you know, is up in the air."

Kerry seized on the comment as a ''flip-flop" from Bush's prior vows to ''win" the war on terror, and he read the quote aloud to an audience at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

''Let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen: You make me president of the United States, we're going to win the war on terror. It's not going to be up in the air whether or not we make America safe," Kerry said.

Bush campaign aides responded by saying they welcome a vigorous debate with Kerry over the war on terror in the campaign's last nine days. ''The president has an aggressive plan to fight terrorists where they emerge, whereas John Kerry has a limited view," said Scott Stanzel, a Bush campaign spokesman.

Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, spoke yesterday from a South Florida pulpit and a jammed performing arts center to offer an image of the values that would guide him as president. The middle class, not the wealthy, will be his focus as president, Kerry said.

He also pledged an aggressive effort over the next nine days to ensure that all eligible voters are able to cast their ballots and have them counted. The argument has a special potency in Florida, where a dispute over the balloting fours year ago had to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Kerry also sought to establish a line between his faith and his decision-making if he wins on Election Day.

''I know there are some bishops who have suggested that as a public official I must cast votes or take public positions, on issues like a woman's right to choose and stem cell research, that carry out the tenets of the Catholic Church," Kerry said in an address to the nearly all-black congregation at the Mount Hermon AME Church.

''I love my church; I respect the bishops, but I respectfully disagree," he added. ''My task, as I see it . . . is not to write every doctrine into law. That is not possible or right in a pluralistic society."

Bush spent much of the day at his Texas ranch, before flying to Alamogordo, N.M., for a late-afternoon rally on a high school football field.

He said terrorists remain determined to attack the United States, and said Kerry's approach to fighting terror does not adequately address the threats.

''My opponent has a Sept. 10th point of view," the president said. ''The outcome of this election will set the direction of the war on terror."

With little more than a week to go before the election, the Kerry campaign -- like the Bush campaign -- began executing a choreographed plan to field surrogate speakers in areas where they may best stir a vote on the candidate's behalf.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, was in Florida on Saturday.

Yesterday, Kerry's senior Massachusetts colleague, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, warned in a pair of speeches at black churches in Philadelphia about Bush's impact on the Supreme Court if he is reelected and is able to a conservative majority.

Today, Kerry campaigns in Philadelphia side by side with former president Bill Clinton, who will appear before a crowd for the first time since undergoing heart surgery in September.

His goal is to motivate the Democratic base by comparing the economy during his two terms in office with that under Bush. But some party loyalists have said they think it may also incite Republicans.

Bush's rally in Alamogordo brought him back to a state that he lost by only 366 votes in 2000, and that is expected to be close again this year. In keeping with his campaign's strategy in the closing days, Bush's event was in a heavily Republican area, where he is hoping his supporters turn out in large numbers to overcome Kerry's advantage elsewhere in the state.

In another interview scheduled for broadcast today, Bush said that while conventional wisdom has been that Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida are the keys to winning the election, a number of smaller states could be just as important.

''I think you're going to find there's a lot of interesting states . . . not considered to be in play," Bush told ABC's Charles Gibson. ''I wouldn't discount Michigan. I wouldn't discount the influence of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and New Mexico. I think this race is a nonpredictable race."

Today, Bush will deliver a speech in Colorado on the war on terror before traveling to Iowa and Wisconsin, and he has stops scheduled in Wisconsin and Iowa tomorrow. The campaign early this week will unveil what aides are describing as their final ad of the race, which will feature an extended excerpt of a recent Bush speech.

Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said the ad will be ''emotional" and ''heartfelt," and will remind voters ''why they have rallied around the president in a post-9/11 world."

Mike McCurry, a senior Kerry adviser, said Kerry decided to deliver yesterday's values speech -- as well as one tomorrow focused on homeland security -- in a bid to reach out to those undecided voters who know they do not support Bush, but are still seeking a reason to vote for Kerry.

Before heading into church and while speaking from the pulpit, Kerry stumbled as he expressed his pride in the Red Sox, who, a night earlier, had won Game 1 of the World Series by a score of 11-9.

''I'll tell you, I was ready to clap because I woke up in the morning and God gave me another day. But I have to tell you, coming from Boston I had a special reason to clap: the Red Sox won 10-9." McCurry later attributed the mistake to ''bad intelligence" staff members gave to Kerry, who was unable to watch the game Saturday night because he was flying to Florida from New Mexico.

Klein, traveling with Bush, reported from Texas and New Mexico; Johnson, traveling with Kerry, reported from Florida. Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com. Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.

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