Heavy-hitters to stump in Pa.



The candidates will try to reel in the undecided voters to their side.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the final push to win Pennsylvania, everybody and the president's mother will stump in the swing state this week as the race for the White House reaches the home stretch.
President Bush will make three trips to Pennsylvania this week, and his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, will visit once. Democrat John Kerry will campaign twice in the state -- including a rally today in Philadelphia with former President Bill Clinton, the Elvis of the party.
And they're just the cream of the political crop that will travel the Keystone State in hot pursuit of its 21 electoral votes. With polls putting the race at either a slight lead for Kerry or a dead heat, both sides will put on a full-court press to win over undecided voters and get supporters to the ballot box.
"With the polls this tight, neither candidate can be confident that they're actually ahead," said American University presidential scholar Allan J. Lichtman. "Each camp is scared stiff that if they don't do enough they're somehow going to fall a nose short of victory at the finish line. There's no evidence that any of this has a large effect. But you've got to err on the side of care -- that's the way they think."
Volunteers
Both campaigns also are rounding up tens of thousands of volunteers to knock on doors, hold up signs on street corners, call residences and drive voters to the polls.
Democrats, for example, are handing out free coffee Monday in Allentown to illustrate what they call the "daily grind" of Bush administration policies. Republicans have mobilized their campaign down to neighborhoods in all 67 of the state's counties.
"This is the fun part," said Guy Ciarrocchi, Bush's state campaign manager, relishing the idea of an upset in a state where Democrats have a nearly half-million voter registration edge.
"The longer we're competitive, the momentum's on our side," he said. "The more they have to campaign here, the more they have to send in President Clinton, that indicates it's tight. This is sort of like a football game with an underdog, and the longer the underdog is given a chance to win, I think the momentum shifts to the underdog."
Kerry would lose
Bush, who lost Pennsylvania in 2000 by a mere 4 percent of the vote, could narrowly retain the White House if he loses the state again. Kerry, on the other hand, almost certainly will lose the election if he loses Pennsylvania.
To prevent that from happening, Democrats have called in just about every big-name party leader to Pennsylvania this week.
They include: vice presidential nominee John Edwards, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, and former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia. Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Elizabeth Edwards were in the state Sunday. Teresa Heinz Kerry will be stumping around the state. And Gov. Ed Rendell kicks off a weeklong bus tour today across Pennsylvania, stopping at college campuses, seniors centers and labor union halls.
Republicans, not to be outdone, have lined up Vice President Dick Cheney, and his wife, Lynne, for two trips; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee; Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, a Republican, and Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia; war heroes Scott O'Grady, who inspired the movie "Behind Enemy Lines," and Michael Durant, who inspired "Black Hawk Down"; and White House chief of staff Andy Card.
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