Gun-toting Kerry goes hunting for geese and Ohio voters

IN TEN vital battleground states including Pennsylvania and Ohio, the National Rifle Association has spent millions of dollars on television advertising and billboard space to impress upon the electorate the vital importance of defeating John Kerry in next month’s US presidential election.

The NRA’s billboard advertisement shows a French poodle, neatly trimmed as though it were heading to Crufts and wearing a "John Kerry for President" sweater.

Beneath this striking image are the words "That dog don’t hunt. For 20 years John Kerry has voted against sportsmen’s rights".

It is no surprise then that Mr Kerry chose to go goose hunting in Ohio yesterday. His real target, however, was gun-owning Ohio voters, sceptical that the Democratic contender understands their affection for hunting.

Establishing his regular guy, pro-gun credentials has been a battle for Mr Kerry but it is vital if he is to have a realistic chance of carrying not just Ohio but swing states across the country.

Mr Kerry returned after the two-hour hunting trip wearing a camouflage jacket and carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, but someone else carried the bird he said he shot.

"I’m too lazy," Mr Kerry joked.

According to Mike McCurry, Kerry’s adviser, yesterday’s shooting trip would help voters "get a better sense of John Kerry, the guy".

The same could be said of Mr Kerry’s emphasis on his religion. The Democrat has in recent weeks made a point of impressing his faith, speaking openly about his Catholicism and its role in shaping his view of the world. Yesterday afternoon he met with the archbishop of Philadelphia in a bid to remind voters that he takes his religion seriously.

At a town hall last Saturday in Xenia, Ohio, Mr Kerry talked about taking his rosary into battle during the Vietnam War. "I will bring my faith with me to the White House and it will guide me," he said.

Mr Kerry’s decision to talk about God and guns is a tacit admission that the Democratic Party has a problem with both issues. White men who believe in both God and their right to bear arms have become one of the Republican Party’s most loyal and important constituencies, and the Democrats are fighting to close the gap.

Gun owners are among the most heavily politicised US voters and 95 per cent of the NRA’s four million members are expected to vote.

This year, the former US president Bill Clinton reflected upon the influence of gun owners on the 2000 election.

"The NRA beat [Al Gore] in Arkansas," he said. "The NRA and Ralph Nader stand right behind the Supreme Court in their ability to claim that they put George Bush in the White House."

He added: "I think the NRA had enough votes in New Hampshire, in Arkansas, maybe in Tennessee and in Missouri to beat us. And they nearly whipped us in two or three other places."

Mr Clinton has said that advocating gun control might have cost Democrats 20 seats in the House of Representatives in the 1994 mid-term elections, ceding control of the House to Republicans for the first time in 40 years.

Democrats have not retaken the House since and do not expect to do so this year. President George Bush was very careful not to advocate extending a ban on assault weapons that expired earlier this year.

Put simply, more votes can be won defending the right of Americans to bear arms than from the gun control lobby.

Although Democrats have never deluded themselves that they could make major inroads into the Republican Party’s dominance in the south, the influence of the "guns and God" constituency is not confined to states south of the Mason-Dixon line. More than 1.3 million Pennsylvanians are gun owners, and hunting is a rite of passage passed on from father to son in culturally conservative counties such as those in southern Ohio.

One Pennsylvania poll last month found that Mr Bush led by 66-27 per cent among gun owners while Mr Kerry enjoyed a 53-39 per cent advantage among unarmed Pennsylvanians.

In September Mr Kerry said at a rally in Wisconsin: "I know hunting is valued up here in Wisconsin. You’re going to hear them try to gang up on me on guns ... The truth is, I’m a gun owner. I’m a hunter. I’ve hunted since I was 12, 13 years old."

Throughout this election campaign Mr Kerry has been at pains to stress his gun-owning, hunting credentials.

That has not impressed the NRA, even though it acknowledges the simplicity and effectiveness of Mr Kerry’s strategy.

"The only thing someone like Mr Kerry has to do is take the tension out of gun ownership so it is not an election issue, and it is a brilliant strategy on his part," said Kayne Robinson, the NRA president.

He said this week that Mr Kerry has been "extremely effective" at portraying himself as a gun enthusiast and defender of the Second Amendment. The NRA is spending $20 million (11 million) to counter that impression and by election day the NRA expects to have sent 15 million pieces of mail to voters across the country.

One survey suggests that even among trade unionists, normally a loyal Democratic interest group, gun ownership is a key and determining issue. Some 48 per cent of gun-owning union members voted for Mr Bush four years ago, 48 per cent for Mr Gore.

Campaigning in Iowa, meanwhile, Mr Bush was once again at pains to present himself as the embodiment of mainstream North American values and, by implication portray Mr Kerry as a man dangerously distant from the cultural mainstream.

"We stand for the Second Amendment, which protects every individual American’s right to bear arms," Mr Bush said in Mason City.

Focus on science and healthcare as polls show little change

SCIENCE and healthcare were on the agenda yesterday as the United States presidential candidates fanned out across battleground states, with the latest polls continuing to show next to nothing between George Bush and John Kerry.

President Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania, was emphasising healthcare and medical liability reform. He attacked Mr Kerry’s healthcare plan, calling it an "overpriced albatross" and alleging it would put millions of Americans into a "government-run" programme, a claim Mr Kerry has denied.

Mr Bush said in Downington, Pennsylvania, last night: "This is a plan that will create a burden that our job creators cannot afford and do not deserve.

"The senator wants the federal government to pick up the tab," he added. "And when the federal government starts to write the rules, the government decides who’s covered, and who gets the coverage, and how much care you get."

The Democratic presidential candidate, meanwhile, turned his attention to science, with a campaign speech in Ohio focusing on the importance of research and criticising Mr Bush’s policy on embryonic stem cell research.

He was joined by the widow of the Superman actor Christopher Reeve, an ardent campaigner for embryonic stem cell research, who died last week at the age of 52 after spending the past nine years paralysed after a horse-riding accident.

Elsewhere, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, scheduled appearances in Ohio and Wisconsin, while Mr Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards, was campaigning in Iowa.

In a speech in Columbus, Ohio, where he was joined by Dana Reeve, Mr Kerry urged an expansion of US funds for embryonic stem cell research.

Reeve had advocated the loosening of restrictions on stem cell research as part of his quest for a cure for spinal cord injuries, and Ms Reeve has announced her support for Mr Kerry.

Mr Bush, concerned about the ethics of using embryos for stem cell research, announced federal funding in 2001 for existing stem cell lines but barred it for lines produced after his executive order.

Scientists have said that, as a result, too few embryonic stem cell lines exist - no more than 21 - to make meaningful advances, and they are all contaminated with mouse cells.

In Iowa, Mr Edwards chided the Bush administration for dispatching the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and other senior officials to presidential battleground states in recent weeks.

"Who’s minding the store? I mean, really," Mr Edwards said during a morning rally in the south-eastern Iowa town of Muscatine.

"There’s a solution to that problem, and that solution in America is called election day."

Earlier, Mr Edwards released a statement denouncing trips by Ms Rice and other executive branch officials as "political activity" that takes them away from their real jobs.

"There’s a problem when our troops are in harm’s way, fighting for a secure Iraq, and our national security adviser is out on the stump campaigning instead of working," Mr Edwards said.

He went on: "There’s a problem when the economy has lost 800,000 jobs and the treasury secretary is out on the stump calling these losses a myth instead of focusing on bringing them back."

The latest Reuters/Zogby poll, released yesterday, gave Mr Bush a one-point lead over Mr Kerry - 46 to 45 per cent - in a three-day tracking poll.

The race effectively remains a dead heat as the single point is well within the poll’s margin of error. The contenders were tied at 46 per cent on the previous two days.

About 6 per cent of likely voters remain undecided between the president and the Massachusetts senator, with less than two weeks before the 2 November election.

The close margin and seesawing momentum resembled the 2000 race between Mr Bush and the Democrat Al Gore, the pollster John Zogby said.

"As we’ve said all along, 2004 is playing out as close as 2000," Mr Zogby said.

WILLIAM BRANIGIN

MAN FROM MASSACHUSETTS HOPES TO MATCH MIRACULOUS FEAT BY BOSTON'S COMEBACK KIDS

IT WAS the kind of comeback John Kerry has staked his political future on and could be seen as something of an omen for the presidential contender.

The Boston Red Sox, the baseball team so beloved of the Democratic hopeful, beat their long-time rivals, the New York Yankees, to advance and take part in their first World Series since 1986.

The 10-3 victory marked a record turnaround for the Red Sox and the worst collapse in history for the Yankees, after the Boston team became the first in baseball history to rally from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series.

Mr Kerry took time out from campaigning to watch the game after arriving at his hotel in Boardman, Ohio, on Wednesday night.

"They’re the greatest comeback team there is," Mr Kerry said. He declined to say if the victory contained any metaphors for his campaign.

The Yankees’ early surge, and then their collapse, has dominated New York newspaper front pages all week.

The defeat came as an embarrassment for Yankee players, some of the world’s most highly paid sportsmen. The last time the Red Sox won the World Series was in 1918.