Bush taunts Kerry
2004-10-13 17:31
Colorado - President George W Bush taunted Democratic rival John Kerry and tested debate lines before friendly audiences in Colorado and Arizona while Kerry crammed in private for Wednesday night's final face-off of the campaign.
Three weeks before the election, the running mates were also running hard on Tuesday.
Vice-president Dick Cheney defended anew the invasion of Iraq, but senator John Edwards said Bush and Cheney had made a mess of the war and were "out of touch with what's happening in the real world."
Kerry prepared at a Santa Fe, New Mexico, hotel for his third televised confrontation with Bush, but he did take time during the afternoon for a bike ride.
Bush met with political advisers and his debate sparring partner, Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
At a rally in Colorado Springs, Bush mocked Kerry's credibility and said the debates so far "have highlighted the clear differences between the senator and me on issues ranging from jobs to taxes to health care to the war on terror".
Again and again he repeated what has become a favourite refrain: Kerry "can run, but he cannot hide" from his record.
Bush won the Rocky Mountain state by more than 8 percentage points in 2000, but Colorado has shown signs it could tilt either way this year.
While the president spoke in Colorado Springs, which went his way four years ago in the southern part of the state, Edwards campaigned in Commerce City, just northwest of Denver.
The North Carolina Democrat contended that Bush was out of touch with important issues including health care and the economy, including jobs lost to other nations.
Outsource George Bush
"I'll tell you what would be good for the economy, would be to outsource George Bush," he said.
On the stump and in an interview with AP Radio, Edwards criticised administration decisions regarding Iraq.
He cited US deaths which have topped 1 000 and said the country had become a magnet for terrorists.
But Cheney, campaigning in Iowa, said that under Saddam Hussein the country probably would have served as a source of weapons for terrorists.
"The situation we faced was Saddam Hussein and Iraq presented the most likely place where there could be a nexus between the terrorists on the one hand and weapons of mass destruction," Cheney said.
The chief US weapons inspector in Iraq said on October 6 that he had concluded that Saddam's Iraq had produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and that Iraq's ability to develop such weapons had weakened over years of UN sanctions.
However, Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq survey group, said Saddam remained a threat and hoped to revive his weapons programme if the United Nations lifted sanctions.
- AP