PRESIDENTIAL RACE Bush, Kerry campaigns tour the country to rally voters

Democrats are focusing on another close race in Florida.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
WASHINGTON -- Playing to his strength, President Bush is campaigning in the small-town Republican heart of Pennsylvania, trying to win a state that Democratic presidential candidates have captured in each of the last three elections.
Bush is taking a bus tour in a battleground state that has drawn more personal attention from the president than any other. He has averaged a trip a month to Pennsylvania this year and today's visit was to be the 30th of his presidency to the state.
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and running mate John Edwards sought to rally voters in Florida on Thursday by recalling the recount dispute in 2000 that tipped the election to Bush.
"I got news for you. In 2004, not only does every vote in Florida count, but every vote is going to be counted," Kerry said during a sweltering rally inside an airport hanger. "They fix those machines, we'll fix America."
Florida's importance
Democrats are putting a heavy emphasis on Florida, where the race seems as close now as it was four years ago. A scant 537 votes delivered Florida and the presidency to Bush after a protracted legal battle resolved by the Supreme Court. Since then, Bush's brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, handily won re-election in 2002 and Republicans increased their registration ranks.
But voter worries about the war in Iraq and other concerns have appeared to cut into any GOP advantage. Recent polls show the race for Florida's 27 electoral votes to be a dead heat.
Kerry and Edwards later went to New York for a fund-raising rock concert at Radio City Music Hall expected to bring in a record $7 million.
Kerry and Edwards were to campaign today in West Virginia and New Mexico before winding up their joint appearances with a rally Saturday night in Edwards' hometown of Raleigh, N.C.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 400,000 in Pennsylvania and Al Gore won the state by 5 percentage points in 2000, yet Bush and Kerry are tied, the latest polls show.
His campaigning is aimed at turning out supporters from the heavily Republican center of the state to offset Democratic votes in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
In his first stop today, Bush addresses the war on terrorism and the economy in remarks to 2,800 supporters on a college campus in Kutztown, Pa., before heading by bus to the small cities of Lancaster and York.
Reaching people
Stopping in Kutztown is a smart political move for Bush because it is in three media markets including Philadelphia, and Bush must do well in November in four counties outside Philadelphia in order to win the state, said G. Terry Madonna, who runs the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & amp; Marshall College in Lancaster.
Pennsylvania has lost more than 150,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush took office and his bus tour far from problem-plagued industrial regions will focus on the party faithful. A poll by the Pennsylvania Economy League says concern over the economy is a major issue in the state.
The economy is as crucial to the president's prospects for winning Pennsylvania as is the war in Iraq, says political science professor Melvin Kulbicki of York University in York, Pa.
"This is his base of support," Kulbicki said of the region, where an uptick in the economy, progress in Iraq and a big Republican voter turnout could bring enough support to carry the state for Bush.