The election will be decided far from the bands and confetti and rhetoric. In the get-out-the-vote war, the Bush campaign claims the largest network of political volunteers in history and Democrats have deployed the largest-ever field of paid turnout workers.
The candidates are keeping an exhaustive pace to the end, with Bush planning a six-state, seven-rally schedule Monday. Bush spent Saturday night in Orlando. Kerry is heading back to Florida on Sunday -- and on Monday, in Cleveland, he meets up again with rocker Bruce Springsteen for a rally. Candidates traditionally lie low on Election Day, but Kerry plans to give satellite interviews to television stations in swing states. Bush is considering the same or perhaps making a campaign stop on the way back to Washington from his ranch in Texas. Making use of one of the perks of his office, Bush gave interviews in his Air Force One conference room to three Ohio television stations as he flew to Michigan on Saturday morning. Bush, a stickler for punctuality, kept the plane aloft an extra 15 minutes so that he could finish the sessions.
Bush, whose advisers had long hoped voters would have security not the economy on their minds as they went to the polls, presided over a classified videoconference about the bin Laden tape in his Columbus, Ohio, hotel suite before hitting the campaign trail for a four-state swing.
Hours after the security meeting, he bounded in shirt-sleeves into the DeVos Place arena in Grand Rapids, where his rostrum was flanked by red, white and blue shields promising "Four More Years of Integrity." Hanging from the wall and ceiling behind him was a fake Michigan license plate that read, "America: Safer Stronger Better."
The economy has been slower to recover and the situation in Iraq has remained more violent than Bush aides expected when they planned his campaign, so he has hung his bid on the more abstract issues of security and steadfastness.
"The role of the American president is not to follow the path of the latest polls," he said. "The role of the president is to lead based upon principle and conviction and conscience. Especially in dangerous times, mixed signals only confuse our friends and embolden our enemies."
Although Bush aides are more optimistic than they were last weekend, the race is still so tight that he continued his relentless attacks on his opponent, naming Kerry a dozen times in a 41-minute speech.
"I think it's fair to say, consistency is not his long suit," Bush said as the audience booed Kerry. "And next Tuesday, the American people will go to the polls. They will be voting for vision. They will be voting for consistency. They will be voting for conviction."
Kerry urged voters not to let the bin Laden tape divide them, while emphasizing that he would provide stronger military leadership.
"As Americans we are absolutely united, all of us. There are no Democrats, there are no Republicans," he said. "As Americans we are united in our determination to destroy, capture, kill Osama bin Laden and all of the terrorists. They are barbarians, and we are going to hunt them down, and we will make America safe."
While senior Kerry adviser Mike McCurry said that the Democrat is not retreating from his central position that Bush's choices have "let Osama wander the globe," it was apparent that the campaign wants to also keep focus on economic concerns.
Kerry went into a busy day of rallies in the battleground states of Iowa and Ohio, while running mate John Edwards also hit Ohio, as well as Maine and Florida. The men stuck to their central closing argument that the election is a stark choice between "four more years of the same" and "a fresh start" as they tried to energize middle-class voters looking for an economic boost.
Edwards also made a tailored appeal to young voters, a demographic that Democrats believe will help the ticket if turnout is higher than usual. "So many times in the history of America, it's taken young people to put us back on track," Edwards said.
Public opinion survey data show a close race -- statistical ties in key states and nationally, with slight but steady movement to Bush over the past week. That allows both sides to build cases that they are winning. White House senior adviser Karl Rove, who devised Bush's reelection strategy along with campaign manager Ken Mehlman, said Bush has "a clear lead" in the race for electoral votes.
"If you look at the upper Midwest -- Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota -- in order for them to win, they need to take every one of them," Rove said. "For us to win, all we need is one. And we're going to take more than one. We are going to take at least two, maybe more."
Tad Devine, a Kerry senior adviser, predicted the senator will get at least 300 electoral votes -- 30 more than needed for victory.
Romano is traveling with Kerry. Staff writers Lyndsey Layton, with Cheney, and John Wagner, with Edwards, contributed to this report.
