Bush, Kerry make final stumps

The Associated Press

SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- Sen. John Kerry accused President Bush on Wednesday of "dodging and bobbing and weaving" on explanations for nearly 400 tons of missing explosives in Iraq. Bush said his presidential challenger was making wild charges without knowing the facts.

Less than a week before the election, both campaigns intensified their efforts.

With their agendas laid out all summer and fall, Bush and Kerry were trying to create an aura of excitement in get-out-the-vote rallies, hoping to snag the dwindling pool of voters who haven't taken sides.

Kerry hit hard at this week's revelation that explosives had disappeared from an outpost in Iraq.

"The missing explosives could very likely be in the hands of terrorists and insurgents, who are actually attacking our forces now 80 times a day on average," Kerry said at a rally in Sioux City. "But now today we've learned even more. What we're seeing is a White House that is dodging and bobbing and weaving in their usual efforts to avoid responsibility, just as they've done every step of the way in our involvement in Iraq."

Kerry said Vice President Dick Cheney "is becoming the chief minister of disinformation" while the president remains silent on the matter.

Bush did bring up the matter a few minutes later, in a speech in Lititz, Pa.

"Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, 'we do not know the facts.'" Bush said. "Think about that -- the senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, that's part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected."

Bush was referring to remarks made by Kerry adviser Richard Holbrooke Tuesday in an interview with Fox News. Holbrooke said "the U.N. inspectors had told the American military this was a major depot." He added: "I don't know what happened. I do know one thing -- in most administrations the buck stops in the Oval Office."

Kerry also appealed to middle-class voters in the election homestretch Wednesday, saying Bush had sold them out to help the wealthy and now wanted "four more years so that he can keep up the bad work."

Bush, meanwhile, put together a campaign endgame that included persistent appeals for Democratic votes and a rarely used weapon in this bruising campaign -- a positive commercial.

Rockers Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi were rejoining the Kerry campaign, minstrels in his fast-moving gallery. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was bringing his star power to Bush's side later in the week.

The president turned to the iconoclastic Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia to accompany him Wednesday to Pennsylvania and Ohio events, in keeping with his late-breaking appeals to Democrats who aren't sold on their own party's nominee.

Bush, in Pennsylvania, said, "I want to remind the American people that if Senator Kerry had his way ... Saddam Hussein would still be in power, he would control all those weapons and explosives" and could have shared them with America's terrorist enemies.

"For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief," Bush said.

Kerry was focusing on economic troubles in the Sioux City speech Wednesday before stumping in Minnesota and back in Iowa, at a Cedar Rapids event. Aides saw that speech and one Friday that will blend his campaign's economic and foreign policy proposals as his "closing arguments" for change. The speeches were added to his schedule after aides had said earlier that a speech Tuesday on homeland security was to be his last of the campaign.

After ripping Kerry for weeks as an equivocator, Bush planned to close the contest with a 60-second commercial meant to show him as steady, trustworthy and compassionate in dangerous times.

The ad shows an emotional president telling the Republican National Convention about meeting the children and parents of slain U.S. soldiers, as well as wounded servicemen and women.

"These four years have brought moments I could not foresee and will not forget," Bush says. "I've learned firsthand that ordering Americans into battle is the hardest decision, even when it is right." The commercial will be seen by a limited audience, given that it will run only on a couple national cable news networks.

Neither campaign was going upbeat, nor were their supporters.

Hard-hitting leaflets lined mailboxes in a dozen or so hotly-contested states. A glossy mailing by the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee showed burning roadside wreckage in Iraq, with U.S. soldiers looking on, and the headline "Wrong Choices ... Less Secure."Ambush in Iraq blamed on U.S.