PRESIDENTIAL RACE Bush and Kerry beat same path to get to voters

The overlapping appearances reflect the race's taut nature.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
HENDERSON, Nev. -- President Bush trolled for Latino votes and Sen. John F. Kerry stumped for the support of senior citizens Wednesday, as the two played a game of political leapfrog across the Southwest and into southern California.
Bush, campaigning in Albuquerque, N.M., pitched his policies on small business and home ownership to a few hundred supporters in the hangar of a private aviation firm. "I have a desire to make sure this country is a stronger county, a better country for everybody -- por todos," Bush said, sprinkling in a bit of Spanish.
Drug-costs issue
Kerry appeared at a community center in booming Henderson, where he assailed the new Medicare prescription-drug bill as a giveaway to pharmaceutical companies and said Americans should be allowed to import cheaper drugs from Canada.
"This isn't fair competition. It's a monopoly and it's been put in place by George Bush and his friends and it's costing you a whole bunch of money and it's wrong," Kerry told a predominantly gray-haired crowd of about 300 guests.
For the past few days, the two presidential candidates have campaigned almost as if they were a tag team, or political road show. Kerry has been in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, and this morning plans to discuss economic policy at California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Carson. He then heads to Oregon.
Bush's schedule over three days includes stops in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. Today in Santa Monica, he plans an evening fund-raiser at the airport with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He then heads to Oregon.
Strategists for each candidate insisted they made their plans first.
"Bush has no strategy, so he has to play follow the leader," said Stephanie Cutter, a Kerry spokeswoman.
"The president's travels are determined weeks, sometimes months in advance," said Scott Stanzel of the Bush campaign.
Regardless of who is shadowing whom, the overlapping appearances reflect the unusually taut nature of this presidential race and the relatively limited number of states that are truly in play with just 82 days left until the election. (California, which appears safely Democratic, is a perennial fund-raising draw.)
True competition
"The 2000 election drove home to everybody that this is really not a nationwide election," said Rhodes Cook, an independent campaign analyst in Washington, who suggested true competition is down to about 15 states.
"If you're really not campaigning in 50 states but only in about 15, then the chances of running into each other are quite considerable."
In Albuquerque, Bush held a town hall-style event that focused on issues his campaign advisers say hold strong appeal for Latinos: small business and home ownership.
"When you hear my opponent talk about taxing the rich ... he's really taxing small businesses," the president said. He contended that many small businesses would be hurt by Kerry's proposal to roll back tax cuts for those who earn more than $200,000 because they pay taxes at individual tax rates.
Faith-based initiative
Bush also lauded his faith-based initiative to make federal dollars available to religious-based charities: "I understand that government is not a loving organization. But government can stand side-by-side with loving organizations to help improve the lives of people from all walks of life."
In Nevada, Kerry focused his attention on senior citizens, with aides announcing an effort to mobilize older voters across the country and touting the endorsement of the Alliance for Retired Americans, a political group that claims 3 million members nationwide.
Appearing in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb that has rapidly grown into Nevada's second-biggest city, Kerry reiterated his support for importing cheaper drugs and pledged never to support privatization of the Social Security system. "Dr. Kerry is here to cure you all," he joked.
Reading from a price list of widely used prescription pills that showed Americans paying upwards of three times as much as Canadians, Kerry said the Medicare bill signed into law last December was "hurting seniors" by forbidding them from purchasing their medication north of the border.