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| Sunday, 24 October 2004 |
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Bush calls out the wolves Kerry aims for female vote President George W. Bush set the wolves on Democratic rival John Kerry in a new television advertisement Friday while Kerry stepped up efforts to woo the women's vote for the US election. Bush's new advert infuriated the Democratic camp. Kerry's running mate John Edwards called it "despicable." The new commercial aims to portray the Massachusetts senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Bush in opinion polls ahead of the November 2 election, as weak in the war on terror. A female narrator accuses Kerry of being dangerously weak on national security, while a pack of wolves - standing in for terrorists - prowl menacingly onscreen. "And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm," the narrator says. Bush also stepped up his attacks in campaign speeches in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. Bush seized on a comment by a senior Kerry foreign policy adviser that the war on terrorism declared after the September 11, 2001, strikes was a "just a metaphor." "I've got news: Anyone who thinks we're fighting a metaphor does not understand the enemy we face, and has no idea how to win the war and keep America secure," he said. Bush meanwhile gained on Kerry in a new Time magazine poll out Friday. If the November 2 election were held today, 51 percent of 1,200 likely voters questioned between October 19 and 21 said they would vote for Bush, 46 percent for Kerry and two percent for independent consumer crusader Ralph Nader. Last week's numbers were 48 percent for Bush, 47 percent for Kerry and three percent for Nader. The Kerry campaign accused Bush of using "the politics of fear." "They have stooped so low now that they are using a pack of wolves running around a forest trying to scare you and trying to scare the American people," Edwards, a senator from North Carolina, told a rally in Florida. "The president is continuing to try to scare America in his speeches and ads in a despicable and contemptible way." Kerry concentrated his campaign on the battleground state of Wisconsin and the key female vote. The Democrat challenger was joined by Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, as he made the case that Bush had deserted working women and "turned back the clock" on equal pay. "The women of America can write the future of America if they go to the polls and make their voice heard," said Kerry in a speech at the University of Wisconsin. (AFP) |
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