By Tom Raum
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2000; 6:33 p.m. EDT

WEST CHESTER, Pa. –– George W. Bush seized on statements made by Al Gore in their first debate to ratchet up criticism Wednesday of his rival's credibility. The Texas governor suggested the vice president exaggerated his account of a disaster-relief visit to his state and Gore scolded Bush for trying to paint him as "a bad person."

A day after the first of three nationally televised debates, both Bush and Gore spoke in battleground states before large, supportive crowds.

"America got to see a difference in philosophy," Bush told several thousands supporters at a noisy rally in a college gymnasium in this Philadelphia suburb. Members of the audience chanted, "No fuzzy math! No fuzzy math!" reprising a debate line Bush used to characterize Gore's criticism of GOP tax-cut plans.

While both candidates followed through on issues raised at Tuesday night's debate in Boston, Bush hardened his stance while Gore sounded a more conciliatory note.

"Even though Governor Bush and I have a lot of differences personally, I think it's better to spend time attacking America's problems than attacking people personally," Gore told about 5,000 supporters at a rally in Warren, Ohio.

Following the debate, both campaigns were adjusting their television advertising strategy. Gore planned to launch ads in his home state of Tennessee and renew his ad campaign in West Virginia in recognition of Bush's inroads in the two states Gore had hoped to have wrapped up by now.

The Texas governor, meanwhile, was matching Gore's newly placed ads in Nevada, a state Bush had hoped to have firmly in his corner by this stage.

On the money front, the Republican National Committee raised more than $30 million in September, giving it considerable resources to stay on the airways over the next five weeks to Election Day, a GOP official said.

Bush campaign officials challenged several debate statements made by Gore, calling them fresh signs of "embellishments and exaggerations."

One involved Gore's remarks on his role in the federal response to floods and fires in Texas.

Bush had praised James Lee Witt, Clinton's director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Gore echoed that praise. "I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires broke out," Gore said.

The Bush campaign said such a trip never took place, and Gore conceded Wednesday that he might have misstated his role – although he said he had been briefed in Texas on the disaster response by Witt associates.

"I traveled with James Lee Witt and so did the governor. And the vice president was nowhere to be seen," said Bush's communications director, Karen Hughes.

Bush, in an interview with Fox TV, said, "I thought for a minute I was going to challenge him on it because I don't remember him being in Parker County," scene of the fires. "I would have remembered it."

"But I took the man at his word," Bush added. "Of course, it turned out he didn't (make the trip with Witt). This is a man – he's got a record, you know, of sometimes exaggerating to make a point."

Gore, asked about the incident on ABC, said, "I was there in Texas, in Houston, with the head of the Texas emergency management folks and with all the federal emergency management folks. If James Lee was there before or after, then, you know, I got that wrong then."

Gore spokeswoman Kym Spell said Gore had attended a round table meeting with state and regional disaster officials – but not with Witt – in Houston on June 25, 1998. She criticized Bush for turning to "personal attacks" in the aftermath of what she called a losing debate performance.

Bush campaign officials also challenged Gore's story about a 15-year-old girl in Sarasota, Fla., Kailey Ellis. Gore said she "has to stand" in science class because it was so overcrowded there weren't enough seats.

Sarasota High School principal Dan Kennedy said the student whose father wrote Gore about her crowded science class was without a desk only one day and could have sat on a lab stool.

"It's another in a disturbing pattern of the vice president simply making things up," said Bush spokeswoman Hughes.

Gore has recently found himself challenged on the numbers he used on the relative costs of arthritis medicine for his mother-in-law and his dog and on his claiming a union song was a childhood lullaby when it wasn't written until he was 27.

The vice president, rallying a crowd in Warren, a Democratic stronghold, scolded Bush. "I think it's time to make our country an even better country instead of trying to make another candidate out to be a bad person," Gore said. "I think we need to build our country up instead of tearing somebody else down."

Gore mentioned Bush by name just once as he road-tested the positive tack he used in Tuesday's debate – and that aides said he would stick too in the two forums upcoming in the next two weeks.

Hughes, meanwhile, said Bush might incorporate some of Gore's first-debate responses into the next matchup, calling them "fair game."