Bush and Kerry in tight sprint to finish

By JOHN WHITESIDES, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON - President Bush and Democratic Senator John Kerry sprinted for the finish in a deadlocked battle for the White House, as Kerry appealed for change and Bush asked voters to "stand with me."

With a flurry of new polls showing the race an absolute dead heat, the candidates tried to fire up their base supporters and persuade undecided voters as their eight-month battle for the White House wound down to an unpredictable finish.

At a rally in New Hampshire, Kerry said he could do a better job than Bush in Iraq and in fighting terror and said Americans faced a choice about the future on Wednesday (NZ time).

"All of the world is waiting for this country to find the path," Kerry told a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, promising Americans "a country that understands how to lead by its moral strength and by its reasoning, not by ideological rigidity and by misleading."

Bush stayed on the offensive in Florida, urging supporters to "come stand with me" and repeating his attacks on Kerry as a weak-kneed and flip-flopping leader.

"If you believe America should fight the war on terror with all our might, and lead with unwavering confidence in our ideals, I ask you: Come stand with me," Bush said to roars at a rally in Miami after attending Catholic Mass at the home church of his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Several new polls showed the race deadlocked heading into the last two days. A Reuters/Zogby tracking poll showed Bush and Kerry in an exact tie at 48 per cent each.

A few independent polls gave an edge to Bush, but two other polls, from Fox News and American Research Group, also showed a tie in a three-way race that included independent candidate Ralph Nader.

Bush and Kerry spent most of the day in the two biggest toss-up swing states -- Ohio and Florida -- and Kerry wedged in a stop in New Hampshire as they tried to piece together the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the presidency.

Kerry needs to win at least one of the two big toss-up states to have a realistic shot at the White House, and the race is close in both Florida and Ohio.

He reached out to blacks, the most loyal of Democratic voters, with a highly personal speech at a morning church service in Dayton, Ohio. He asked the churchgoers to enlist in his campaign for social and economic justice.

"That is the choice in this race," the Massachusetts senator told more than 1,000 parishioners crammed into a Baptist church. "It is a choice about what kind of country and society we'll have."

'FLIP-FLOP HALL OF FAME'

Bush said Kerry put himself into the "flip-flop hall of fame" after first voting for a version of an US$87 billion funding bill mostly for the US military in Iraq and then voting against it.

He told supporters at a rally in Tampa the stakes were high in Wednesday's voting. "The future safety and prosperity of America are on the balance," he said.

Americans also will decide who holds power in Congress and vote on governorships in 11 states on Wednesday, with Bush's Republicans favoured to retain control of both the Senate and House of Representatives.

Nearly 2 million Floridians have cast early ballots in the election as officials across the country reported record levels of early voting. The watchdog group Common Cause, which set up a hotline to record complaints about voting problems, said it had received more than 53,000 calls nationally.

Both campaigns geared up armies of volunteers to help turn out voters in an election where an organised ground game could make the difference.

Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, told a predominantly black church in Jacksonville, Florida, to take advantage of early voting rules and cast ballots immediately after the service.

"There are forces, there are powerful forces, fighting against justice," Edwards said, referring to Florida's chaotic balloting and election recount dispute in 2000. "We're going to make sure your votes are counted this time."

Vice President Dick Cheney, who heads to Hawaii on Sunday for a quick visit to mobilise Republicans in the normally Democratic state, said in Ohio that Kerry was making "phoney charges" and insulting troops by claiming Bush diverted resources from the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

"Instead of praising their achievement, John Kerry harps away at phoney charges," the vice president said in Swanton, Ohio.

Both camps expressed optimism about the outcome with a certainty that was not apparent in any public opinion polls. Bush political adviser Karl Rove said Kerry needed to sweep Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota to have a shot.

"All we have to do is take one. And we're going to take more than one," Rove said.

Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart said the race would turn on 12 remaining battleground states "and we're tied or leading in 10 of them."

- REUTERS