United States President George Bush and his Democratic rival John Kerry clashed on Tuesday over the US economy and the Iraq war as the US military death toll reached 1 000.
Bush seized on Kerry’s latest criticism of the US-led war in Iraq as a new sign of the Massachusetts senator’s indecision, which Republicans have sought to highlight in the campaign for the November 2 vote.
The Democratic challenger said the record $442-billion budget deficit predicted by the Congressional Budget Office was a new sign of Bush’s inability to run the economy.
With the US death toll in Iraq reaching the 1 000 mark, Kerry brought the US-led invasion back into the election battle on Monday, saying it was ”the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time”.
Kerry has been urged by advisers to take a more aggressive line on Bush’s decision-making on events in Iraq and at home.
Both rivals are touring the 17 ”battleground” states that are considered the key to winning the vote.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, Bush again accused Kerry of making contradictory statements over the Iraq war.
”My opponent has now voted for the war and against supplying our troops,” Bush said of two Congress votes by Kerry.
”When he got on the Democratic primary, he declared himself the anti-war candidate. More recently he switched again, saying he would have voted for the war, even knowing everything we know today,” Bush said.
In a weekend call from his hospital bed, former president Bill Clinton advised Kerry to take the election fight to Bush instead of letting the head of state dictate events.
Some experts say Iraq will take a bigger role again in the US election debate. John Mueller, a professor of politics at Ohio State University, said Kerry ”seems to be moving onto the attack on the Iraq war, which is something he has not done in quite so direct a way in the past”.
Kerry also stepped up his attack on Bush over the budget deficit and the economy.
Speaking in Greensboro, North Carolina, Kerry said ”because of George Bush’s wrong choices, this country is continuing to ship good jobs overseas — jobs with good wages and good benefits.
”All across America, companies have shut their doors, putting hardworking people out of a job, leaving entire communities without help or hope.”
But another poll released Tuesday gave Bush a commanding lead, though the Democrats say this is a normal rebound after last week’s Republican convention.
The Gallup poll for CNN television and the USA Today daily said Bush led 52% to 45% among likely voters. The gap was just 49% to 48% among all registered voters.
Two other recent polls have given Bush a lead of up to 11 percentage points.
Opinion polls before the convention indicated a neck-and-neck race between Bush and Kerry.
The Gallup survey also found that a slight majority of Americans believe attacks against Kerry by his opponents have been unfair.
Fifty-two percent of respondents said Kerry had been unfairly attacked, versus 41% who said he had not.
In the same poll, 41% said Republican President George Bush had been the victim of unfair attacks, versus 53% who said he had not.
Kerry has accused the Bush campaign of masterminding attacks on his character by a Vietnam War veterans’ group that questioned Kerry’s heroism in combat. – Sapa-AFP