FORT MYERS, Fla. — Rallying huge crowds of their own volunteers and voters, President Bush and John Kerry on Saturday each claimed to be the only candidate ready to lead America in the fight against terrorism.
Accompanied by five Marine helicopters, Bush landed in left field of a Fort Myers stadium used for spring practice by Kerry's hometown baseball team, the Boston Red Sox. Bush told about 10,000 raucous fans that the Democrat's presidency could endanger America.
Mocking a Kerry adviser who called the "war on terrorism" a metaphor akin to the "war on poverty," Bush said, "Anyone who thinks we are fighting a metaphor does not understand the enemy we face. You cannot win a war if you are not convinced we're even in one."
Bush accused Kerry of contradicting his own positions on Iraq. While Kerry now criticizes the war as ill-advised and improperly run, Bush said that before the campaign Kerry agreed that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States and had voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq.
"Senator Kerry seems to have forgotten all of that, as his position has evolved during the course of the campaign," said Bush. "You might call it election amnesia."
Bush campaigned at sports venues in Lakeland, Melbourne and Jacksonville before flying to his ranch in Texas Saturday night.
Kerry, campaigning in Colorado, told an energized crowd of 10,000 that he had serious reservations about Bush's ability to wage a war on terrorism while simultaneously promoting family-friendly economic policies.
"A president has to be able to do more than one thing at the same time," Kerry said.
But even in the war on terror, Kerry faulted Bush for failing to pursue Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and his al-Qaida organization with the same zeal with which he led the country into a war against Saddam.
"We need a president who never takes his eye off the target, al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden," Kerry said.
Kerry, like Bush, sought to infuse his rank-and-file supporters with a new sense of urgency as the Nov. 2 election day nears. He urged them to "vote your hopes, not the fears that George Bush wants you to feel."
"This president keeps going around the country trying to scare people," Kerry said.
"The only thing he wants to talk about is terror, the war on terror, national security," Kerry said. "If that's the debate we want to have, I'm prepared to have that debate, because I can wage a better war on terror than George Bush has."
Kerry touched on many of the same issues in New Mexico, with the state's popular Hispanic governor, Bill Richardson, at his side.
As Bush and Kerry squared off again over national security, polls continued to show them in a virtual dead heat. A Reuters/Zogby poll released Saturday showed Bush leading Kerry 47 percent to 45 percent, a statistical tie given the poll's margin of error. About 6 percent said they were undecided.
Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, seized on a new report in Fortune magazine about Bush's plan to privatize Social Security after the election, charging that it would mean raising the retirement age to 72.
Campaigning in Florida, Edwards said the president's attitude is "it's not a big deal if the American people have a few more years of work" before being able to receive pension benefits. And he demanded that the president explained his plans before the voting.
"After four years of seeing how this administration operates, we cannot imagine George Bush being up front with the American people about his plans," Edwards said. "It's not his style of leadership. He prefers the secret plans and the secret meetings because he doesn't have the backbone to tell our seniors the truth."
Vice President Dick Cheney, campaigning Saturday in New Mexico, largely echoed the president's criticisms of Kerry as contradictory and too unreliable to lead in a time of war.
"John Kerry will say and do anything in order to get elected," Cheney said. He will try to scare young people by raising the specter of the draft when he knows the only people who have supported the idea of bringing it back are two members of his own party."
Kerry's morning rally was staged at Pueblo's historic railroad depot, where President Woodrow Wilson delivered his last speech defending the League of Nations in 1919.
Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, introduced Kerry at rally of several thousand people.
"America needs a fresh start," Salazar said, picking up the principal theme of Kerry's campaign events in the final days of the contest.
Bush, who will go to Colorado on Monday, won that state by a comfortable margin over Democrat Al Gore in 2000, 51 percent to 42 percent. But the latest Gallup poll shows Bush and Kerry in a dead heat, raising the stakes for the state's nine electoral votes.
The Kerry campaign is attempting a record-setting mobilization of Hispanic voters in Colorado and New Mexico and Nevada, where he campaigned the past two days.
Bush, in his weekly radio address and four campaign stops in Florida, intensified his attacks on Kerry over the issue of national security.
"All progress on every other issue depends on the safety of your family," Bush told the crowd at Fort Myers.
During Bush's second appearance of the day at Ty Cobb Field in Lakeland, Fla., the president was temporarily downed out by the overhead screech of a military fighter jet that had been scrambled after a civilian aircraft entered the air space near the stadium.
The plane was diverted and forced to land. White House aides later said the pilot had been taken into custody, but provided no other details.
Bush aides said a second plane was stopped by military fighter jets near Melbourne, Fla. That plane was being flown by Robert Hargrave, 73, of Georgia, who was en route to Boca Raton, Fla. Hargrave landed his plane at the nearby Merritt Island Airport.
Bush, who stuck to areas he won in 2000, capped his campaign day by buzzing the partially filled stadium of the Jacksonville Jaguars aboard Air Force One while Panther cheerleaders wearing orange and black midriff-baring "W" T-shirts and black short shorts entertained the crowd along with country western singer Aaron Tippin.
Prior to Bush's arrival in the stadium, Tippin led about 30,000 supporters in a call for "Four more years," then, borrowing from his own lyrics, added, "Anybody who don't like that can kiss this!"
Bush left Florida Saturday night for his ranch in Crawford, Texas. He'll travel to New Mexico on Sunday.
Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, said Bush will visit Florida six more times in the next 10 days. The president is also scheduled to visit Pennsylvania eight more times by Nov. 2.
Kerry is scheduled to make a long-awaited appearance in Philadelphia on Monday with former President Bill Clinton, the first political event involving the ex-president since he underwent heart surgery.
But on Sunday, Kerry will be in Florida to make a speech heavily promoted by his advisers, one in which the Democratic nominee will explain how his religious values would guide his decision-making in the Oval Office.