PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION Bush, Kerry seek to gain ground in battle for Ohio

Two new polls show Bush has gained a large lead.
STAFF/WIRE REPORT
Sen. John Kerry and President Bush rumbled through the battlegrounds of Ohio and Pennsylvania on Saturday, with Kerry making a short visit to flood victims in Lisbon.
Lisbon was hit by heavy rains and flooding last weekend.
"It's real serious," Kerry said of the damage. "These folks don't have insurance. They're hurting. They don't have heat or hot water yet."
Kerry gave resident Bill Shuman a new floatable jacket, saying the man works for the Coast Guard and had his jacket ruined in the flood.
"He needs it to work," Kerry said.
A Kerry spokesman in Ohio said the stop in Lisbon was completely unplanned, adding that it's not unusual for candidates on a bus tour to see a group of people and stop for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, two new polls indicated Bush gained a substantial lead over his Democratic challenger in the wake of the Republican National Convention.
The polls, by newsweeklies Time and Newsweek, have Bush ahead of Kerry by 11 percentage points -- the biggest lead by either candidate in months.
The race has shown an ability to return to equilibrium, however, and both sides predicted the contest would tighten once again during the final 60 days of the campaign.
Combative style
At a rally in Akron, Kerry displayed his new combative stump style, accusing Bush of trying to "bamboozle" voters with a negative campaign and by hiding bad news from the public.
In particular, Kerry described a record 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums for senior citizens as a betrayal of ordinary Americans. Kerry said the Bush administration announced the increase, the largest in 40 years, late on Friday evening in hopes that it would be buried amid other news.
"They're trying to fake it to the American people," he said. "They're trying to bamboozle you and throw around so much mud that you can't really break through and grab onto the things that are real in your lives."
In Edinburg in Portage County, Kerry stopped to shoot skeet on the farm of Chris and Tom Tfile. He hit four out of 10 of the clay pigeons that sailed over the alfalfa toward a field of soybeans -- though the hosts said the trajectory of the targets was too low.
Asked how the race is going, Kerry said: "We're doing good. They're going to get a bounce out of the convention, but we'll be coming back."
'Opportunity zones'
Bush, at a stop near Cleveland, acknowledged the economic difficulties in Ohio as he tried to reassure voters that he has a plan to help them. Bush touted his proposal for "opportunity zones" that would let hard-hit communities qualify for job training assistance, community development grants and other forms of federal help.
"The economy is growing. I understand there are places in America that lag behind," he told a crowd in Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School near Cleveland. "Ohio has got pockets of unemployment that are unacceptable."
In a question-and-answer session with supporters, Bush declined to endorse a flat tax, which would eliminate deductions and establish a single low tax rate for all Americans.
"I'm not going to prejudge the outcome. It's certainly one option," he said, repeating his promise to lead a bipartisan effort to simplify the tax code.
Bush was greeted along his route by crowds of supporters interspersed with some Kerry backers. His largest event of the day was a rally at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Erie, Pa., where more than 10,000 people filled the stands.
At the high school event near Cleveland, local police thought three buses filled with White House reporters were a caravan of anti-Bush demonstrators and escorted them to a church parking lot far from the Bush rally. They realized their mistake when a perplexed Bush campaign aide and a Secret Service agent emerged from the lead bus to find out why they had been diverted.
Campaign officials later defended their practice of loading Bush's audiences with supporters. "People that are likely to disrupt an event, we don't want to come to our event," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said. "That's not news."
Though Bush had been tied with Kerry in most polls heading into last week's GOP convention, the Time and Newsweek polls found that Bush had opened up an 11-point gap between them. Time conducted its poll of 926 likely voters from Tuesday through Thursday. It showed Bush leading 52 percent to 41 percent. Newsweek's poll, conducted Thursday and Friday, showed an identical result.
The Newsweek poll, of 1,008 adults, showed that 49 percent of the respondents thought the country was moving in the wrong direction; 43 percent were satisfied with the direction of the country. The Newsweek poll also found that 53 percent of voters wanted to see Bush re-elected.
The polls were especially good news for Bush because Kerry had been unable to translate the Democratic convention into a similar surge in support. Still, the race has shown an ability to stay even, despite previous swells in popularity by either candidate.