Kerry and Bush head to key states

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE

BOSTON - With their aim increasingly focused on the American heartlands, John Kerry and George Bush yesterday took their campaigns to Pennsylvania - one of the crucial battleground states that could decide November's presidential election.

Looking to build on the boost they received from the Democratic convention in Boston, Mr Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, took their populist platform and optimistic message to Pittsburgh.

Mr Bush, campaigning on his national security credentials, was also due to speak in the city last night.

The rush towards states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Mr Bush also made stops yesterday, shows that both the Democratic and Republican parties know that for all the rousing applause from their respective conventions, it is not the cheering delegates who will decide this election.

Rather it is that increasingly small sliver of undecided voters living in states that could be won by either party who must be won over.

Kristin Peterson, 53, an Ohio delegate from the college town of Oberlin, summed up this reality as she waited for her plane home at Boston's Logan international airport on Friday afternoon: "We are the choir. We're not the ones that really count."

Both parties are anxiously waiting for the release of polls that will show the impact on voters of the Democrats' convention last week in Boston. Many pundits believe that Mr Kerry - essentially tied with Mr Bush - could receive a boost of up to six points.

There are few places where that boost would be more important than in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

At the last election the Democrats won Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral college votes (a candidate requires 270 such votes nationally to win the presidency) but the Republicans have made it a top priority for this year.

Mr Bush has made more than 30 visits to the state in an effort to win over support. Ohio, with 20 college votes, was won by the Republicans in 2000 by a margin of 4 per cent.

A true indicator, the winning candidate has won the state in every election since 1960. Mr Bush was yesterday due to speak in the city of Canton, which Mr Kerry has highlighted in his campaign through the story of a steelworker, Dave McCune, whose job has been shipped overseas.

"What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steelworker that I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas," Mr Kerry asked during his convention address, "and the equipment in his factory was literally unbolted, crated up and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job?"

Renee Lipson, another Ohio delegate who was flying home from Boston on Friday, believed that Mr Kerry had done enough in his speech to win over swing voters in her state.

"He spoke to the issues that matter to middle America," she said. "He talked about healthcare, jobs, out-sourcing.

There was a lot about leadership and his war record but he also said we should build a coalition. These are everybody's issues."

While Mr Kerry has been highlighting stories such as that of Mr McCune, Mr Bush has been drawing a different picture of the economy, saying he is empowering workers and business by lowering taxes and giving employees more control over pensions and healthcare benefits.

He says small businesses, where many of the new jobs are, stand to benefit the most. "I'm asking for four more years to make our country safer, to make the economy stronger," Mr Bush said on Friday in Springfield, Missouri.

Meanwhile in Canton, where unemployment grew to 6.4 per cent in June from 5.9 per cent in May, Mr McCune, told his local newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal: "We didn't fight for the place [the steel plant] simply because it was our livelihood. We fought for it because it was a piece of American history ... Of all the thousands of stories Kerry's heard on the campaign trail, I'm proud he remembered mine."

- INDEPENDENT