Bush, Kerry gear up for first debate
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-30 08:43

US President Bush and Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry wrapped up debate preparations and headed for Florida on Wednesday, with Kerry promising the confrontation will reveal "the truth" about the president.

"I'm looking forward to tomorrow night for an opportunity to share with Americans the truth, not the sound bites, not the advertisements, the truth," Kerry said as he left Wisconsin, where he spent three days preparing for the 90-minute face-to-face encounter at the University of Miami on Thursday night.

Jim Tetlow, assistant lighting director for the Miami presidential debate (R) checks the light on stage at the University of Miami on September 29, 2004 with Senator John Kerry's podium at left and President George W. Bush's at right. The war in Iraq, which has plagued the Bush administration with escalating violence and intelligence lapses, is widely expected to produce the most heated rhetoric of the 90-minute face-off over foreign policy. It is the first of three Bush-Kerry debates scheduled between now and the Nov. 2 election.[Reuters ]

Bush toured recent storm damage in Florida on his fourth visit to the state since a series of hurricanes pelted the crucial election battleground, and aides declared him fit for the encounter with Kerry.

"The president is ready," said top campaign adviser and long-time confidant Karen Hughes, who was among a number of senior aides who spent the weekend with Bush at his Crawford, Texas, ranch to help prepare him for the debates.

Both camps worked to lower expectations for their man in the high-stakes nationally televised debate, which will give as many as 50 million Americans their first chance to judge the two White House candidates side-by-side on the same stage.

The debate session will focus on foreign policy and is certain to be dominated by the wars in Iraq and on terror, issues that have been spotlighted in a tight presidential race that most polls show is leaning toward Bush.

"I can be a stronger commander-in-chief who solves the problem of Iraq and gets our troops home," Kerry declared as he headed for Florida.

In a fund-raising appeal to supporters entitled "I know how much you are counting on me," Kerry said the debates would force Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to publicly explain their decisions on a host of issues before the Nov. 2 election.

"Bush and Cheney may believe that they can hide their failures and get away without acknowledging their costly mistakes for 34 more days," the Massachusetts senator said. "But you and I know better. We know that the truth is catching up with them."

The Bush camp said the president was prepared to defend his Iraq policy from Kerry's attacks, and promised to point out what they called Kerry's shifting positions on Iraq.

"He's gotten to the point now where he's taken so many different positions that there isn't anything he can say today that doesn't contradict something he's already said," Cheney said at a campaign event in Lake Elmo, Minnesota.

'Heavy task'

With many polls showing voters still do not like Kerry and trust Bush more to handle key issues including Iraq, Bush strategist Matthew Dowd said "John Kerry's task is heavy" and he would have 90 minutes to do what he had not managed in two years of campaigning.

"Kerry has to convince people that he is credible and that he has a plan, and that the American public wants to see him in their living rooms for the next four years," Dowd said.

On his arrival in Florida, Bush took a walking tour of an orange grove in Lake Wales, hit last week by Hurricane Jeanne and also damaged earlier by Hurricanes Charley and Frances.

About $10 billion in emergency aid requests for Florida are still pending before the U.S. Congress. Bush said he would work to make sure Florida farmers are treated fairly in global markets and no country tries to take advantage of the state's citrus growers.

Republicans pounced on Kerry for saying in an ABC "Good Morning America" interview that "we should not have gone to war knowing the information that we know today."

Hughes said that conflicted with Kerry's statement in August that he would have voted to authorize the war even knowing that no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

"I think it's important for the next commander in chief and the next president of the United States to know that America's freedom and security are worth winning the war against terror, to say that unequivocally," she said.

The debate in Florida will be the first of three matchups of the two candidates. Cheney and Kerry's running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, will debate next Tuesday.

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