As Nominees Stump, Camps Talk Up Role of Grass-Roots Support

With just 10 days left until election day, George W. Bush underscored his rival’s Washington ties and penchant for exaggeration, while Al Gore portrayed Bush as a friend of the health care industry, not ordinary Americans.

As the two presidential candidates took jabs at each other from a distance, albeit more gently than earlier in the week, the shape of the election’s final days became a little clearer. Their campaigns dribbled out information about itineraries, and Gore’s staff announced an advertising push.

Campaigning Saturday in central Wisconsin, Bush called the vice president a “formidable opponent,” described Washington as a place of “bitterness and acrimony” and painted the Democrat as an integral part of the federal bureaucratic maze.

“He’s got the president getting ready to campaign for him,” taunted the Texas governor, wrapped in a heavy winter coat, running mate Dick Cheney by his side. “He’s the incumbent.”

Striding onstage at Fox Cities Stadium, home to the Class A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Bush flashed “W” signs at more than 5,000 supporters who braved the early autumn cold to hear and cheer.

Gore, said the Republican nominee, “is so confident about his abilities, he claimed he invented the Internet. But if he was so smart, how come all the Internet addresses start with,” and he paused, “W! Not only one W, but three Ws!”

Drawing Attention to Health Care Issue

The vice president campaigned in Pennsylvania--the second day in a row that he’d stumped there and a reflection of the state’s critical importance. At Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, he drew attention to his differences with Bush concerning health care.

“The reason the HMOs and insurance companies and drug companies are supporting my opponent--and pouring millions of dollars into an effort to bend the choice in this election to their will and not yours--is because they know where I stand,” Gore said.

“They know that for 24 years I have fought for the interests of middle-class families and working men and women,” he continued. “They know I know where the rats in the barn are.”

Gore singled out Republican support last week for legislation in Congress that would provide $34 billion to health maintenance organizations taking part in Medicare.

The legislation was intended to assist such providers as home health care programs and nursing homes that participate in Medicare, which helps pay for the health care of 39 million elderly and disabled Americans. But “it doesn’t have a dime’s worth of patient protections,” Gore charged.

First-Stringer Wants in the Game

As the last days of the campaign took shape, one high-powered Democratic surrogate said he thought he could help Gore if only he was allowed.

The Gore campaign has kept President Clinton on the sidelines for much of the election cycle. The charismatic Clinton always threatens to overshadow his second in command, and his impeachment has alienated many swing voters. On Saturday, Clinton downplayed the rift while defending his ability to move the electorate.

“The most important actors in this drama are Al Gore and Gov. Bush,” Clinton told reporters at a White House news conference, according to Associated Press. “They’re the only actors in the drama who really have any sway . . . [but] the rest of us might be able to sway some undecided voters if our arguments are heard.”

The vice president’s political aides on Saturday outlined a $15-million television advertising plan directed at as many as 22 states and funded by the Gore campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

“We expect the paid media presence will put us in position to have a major impact on voters in all the critical battlegrounds,” senior Gore advisor Tad Devine said.

Devine said the advertising highlights Bush’s record in Texas while amplifying doubts he says campaign focus groups are finding about whether Bush is up to the job of president.

Devine claimed that, among the states in play, Gore leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Washington and Oregon. And he said polls show Gore has made strides in Ohio.

Michael Whouley, the DNC’s senior political official, said as many as 40,000 volunteers would be pushing Gore’s campaign in the battleground states and that some potential voters would be contacted at least 10 times before the election.

“We will have organizational superiority,” he said. “King George had fancier uniforms and better armaments during the [American] Revolution, but the revolutionaries won.”

In a race as tight as campaign 2000, energizing their core constituencies is key for both candidates.

Bush said he “takes nothing for granted” in traditionally Democratic Wisconsin, where one recent poll showed him trailing by 7 percentage points. Campaigning later in Columbia, Mo., he declared it “a swing state; I can’t win it alone.”

“The team with the most energized grass-roots organization is the team that’s going to win, and we’re ready to go,” Bush said in Grand Chute. “We need your help to turn out the vote. And don’t be afraid to turn to open-minded Democrats, disillusioned independents, because they know we can do better in Washington, D.C.”

While most polls over the last several days have shown Bush leading Gore, in most cases the lead is only a few points and is within the margin of sampling error. That means the race is, for all intents and purposes, dead even.

Oddly enough, Bush and Gore both stuck to abbreviated campaign schedules. After the stop in Wilkes-Barre, Gore headed back to Washington, keeping to his practice of attending his son’s prep school football games. He planned to head to Minnesota afterward for an evening rally.

Bush held two rallies and then flew home to Austin, Texas, where he will remain all day today. His only public event is a satellite address to Latino supporters in Anaheim Hills.

Gore plans to spend today in Michigan, meeting first with Arab Americans, then attending two church services and finally crossing the state on a bus tour.

Although the Gore campaign recently showed no inclination to return to California before election day Nov. 7, the race has tightened. So Gore is likely to hold a Los Angeles rally Tuesday and tape “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” Clinton is expected to campaign in the state by week’s end.

On Monday, Bush also will appear on “The Tonight Show” and hold an airport rally in Burbank, followed by a rally in Fresno. He will campaign Tuesday in Santa Clara.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Gore’s running mate, is an observant Jew and does not campaign on Saturdays. Later this week, he will join Gore in Michigan. Cheney planned to take today off but is scheduled to campaign in the Midwest and Florida this week.

After stumping Saturday with Bush in Wisconsin, the normally taciturn Cheney traveled to Davenport, Iowa, where he bantered with a boisterous rally at the county fairgrounds. As he poked fun at Gore for having to stump in his home state of Tennessee, a man in the crowd shouted: “They have no home state.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re ahead in Washington, D.C., and not Tennessee,” Cheney responded, adding, “We’re going to carry Wyoming. And we’re going to carry Texas. And we’re going to carry Iowa!”

Someone in the crowd yelled out: “And Illinois!”

“And Illinois!” Cheney shouted. “Anyone want to volunteer any other states?” He punched the air and answered his own question: “How about Ohio! Michigan! Pennsylvania! Forty states. How about 40 states?”

*

Times staff writer Megan Garvey contributed to this story.

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Too Close to Call

Defying conventional wisdom, the electoral college map has gotten more fluid as election day nears. States once considered solid for

Democrat Al Gore, such as Minnesota and home-state Tennessee, are now tossups. But Republican George W. Bush has yet to nail down must-win Florida, leaving both men shy of the 270 electoral votes needed to win.