Bush takes a double-digit lead

2004-09-05 22:15

Washington - George W Bush has taken a double-digit lead in what has been a neck-and-neck presidential election contest, prompting Democratic challenger John Kerry to refocus his campaign on bread-and-butter economic issues.

This is where the Republican incumbent president is considered vulnerable.

Bush, fresh from last week's Republican Party's convention, would trounce Kerry by a 54/43% margin in a theoretical head-to-head match-up, according to a poll to be published in Monday's editions of Newsweek magazine.

That result marks a 13-point margin bounce for the president since an August 5 - 10 poll.

A Time magazine poll released on Friday also reported Bush opening up a double-digit lead over Kerry.

Until last week's Republican national convention, polling showed Bush and Kerry to be virtually tied, with the Massachusetts senator enjoying perhaps the slightest of leads over the president.

But Kerry began to slip in the polls after Republicans succeeded in tarnishing his Vietnam war hero status, calling into question whether he actually deserved the medals and other honours he received.

The Bush campaign also began to recast Kerry as a "flip-flopper" who has been unable to take a firm stand on even the most clear-cut policy questions, such as support for the US-led war in Iraq.

Although insisting that the president is still highly vulnerable on the questions of Iraq and the US-led "war on terror," Kerry has retreated from those issues on the campaign trail, placing greater emphasis on the sputtering economic recovery.

"Over the past three years, we've lost 1.6 million jobs in the United States. And to make matters worse, the new jobs were creating pay an average of $9 000 less than the ones we've lost," he said on Saturday in the Democrats' weekly radio address.

"All across America, people who are working are working hard.

"They are working two jobs, three jobs, they're working weekends, just to get by.

"If President Bush thinks this is good enough, then he just doesn't get it," Kerry said.

Democrats say 230 000 jobs have been lost since Bush took office in 2001; Kerry says he will create 417 000 jobs if he is elected.

Bush's campaign team seemed unruffled by the latest salvos from the Kerry camp.

"One campaign, the Bush campaign, is talking about the next four years," chief campaign strategist Ken Mehlman told ABC news on Sunday.

"We're focused on the future. We're focused on making America a more hopeful place.

"We're focused on making the world a safer place," Mehlman said.

- AFP