PRESIDENTIAL RACE Bush, Kerry campaign in same city, same day

Kerry has crossed paths with the president's supporters.
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush is campaigning in two adjoining Midwest states he narrowly lost four years ago, as he and rival John Kerry battle it out in the same Iowa city on the same day, and the president promotes an environmental program in rural Minnesota.
Bush and Kerry are in a tight race in Iowa and both candidates are going after voters in Davenport, an area that some political experts say provided Democrat Al Gore the votes he needed four years ago in capturing the state with a margin of less than 5,000 votes.
Gore made a well-timed visit to the state the month before the election. This is Bush's fourth trip to Iowa this year.
Bush's campaign rally today along the banks of the Mississippi River is barely three blocks away from where Kerry was to listen to the stories of manufacturing job losses in the state, which have totaled more than 26,000 since Bush took office.
On the positive side for Bush in Iowa is that the state's jobless rate, 4.3 percent in June, consistently has been below the national average, which was 5.6 percent in June.
The battle
Iowa Republicans say they are not surprised that the incumbent president is in a dead heat with Kerry in the state.
"After what happened in 2000, with the election going to the Supreme Court, that hardened many people's attitudes," former Iowa state Republican chairman Michael Mahaffey said. "Democratic Party activists have been very disgruntled and they want to make sure they do everything they can to make sure that George Bush is defeated."
Mahaffey's view is that the "passion is more to get George Bush defeated than it is to get John Kerry elected."
The stops on Kerry's cross-country campaign trip are hardly Democratic bastions.
Fresh off his Boston nominating convention with a unified party, Kerry has been taking his Democratic presidential campaign to Republican strongholds from Newburgh, N.Y., to Harrisburg, Pa., to Grand Rapids, Mich.
Kerry is attracting massive crowds in places where Democrats don't often campaign.
The tens of thousands who have seen him this week have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.
Kerry has spent the last several months jetting into big cities, which often tend to vote Democratic. Kerry's advisers say there will be more of that in the fall, but the bus trip gives him a chance to stop in the medium-size markets that were decided by a slim margin in 2000 and where Bill Clinton did well in winning the White House in 1992 and 1996.
Crossing paths
Coming into Bush country means Kerry has crossed paths with the president's supporters. They show their opposition to the Massachusetts Democrat by putting big signs on their lawns when Kerry drives by or by protesting at his events.
Kerry's staff tries to keep them away from the candidate.
As Kerry shook hands with voters behind a rope line in Monroe, Wis., he approached a small group of Bush supporters with a homemade sign that said "No flip-flops in the White House" and had a red pair of the plastic shoes attached to it.
A Kerry aide saw the sign just as he was about to shake their hands and, with a whisper in his ear, guided him away just before there could have been a confrontation.
In the Mankato, Minn., area, Bush was highlighting a national program that would provide $40 billion over the next decade to restore millions of acres of wetlands, protect sensitive habitats, conserve water and improve streams and waterways near farms and ranches.
Kerry's camp sent Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin to Minnesota to criticize Bush's level of support for the conservation program, saying Minnesota has seen fewer acres approved for enrollment in the program.
One calculation in the president's visit to rural Minnesota may be the overlap effect on Iowa.
Mankato has a television station that broadcasts into Iowa, says political science professor Joseph Kunkel of Minnesota State University in Mankato.
The president was visiting a farm in the town of LeSueur, Minn., and a quarry in Mankato.