Bush and Kerry in a statistical dead heat

President Bush told supporters Tuesday in the conservative heart of Colorado that &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/397/14145_Kerry.html ' target=_blank>John Kerry cannot pay for the domestic programs he is proposing unless taxes are raised on the middle class.

"As much as he's tried to obscure it," Kerry is a confirmed liberal, Bush said in a run-up to Wednesday night's final debate. The presidential debates have "showed differences between the senator and me on issues ranging from jobs to taxes to health care to the war on terror," said the president, who underscored the importance that health care could play in the debate in Tempe, Ariz.

Bush said he has the answers to fix the health care system and that he won't wreck the federal budget in doing so, wrote Associated Press.

From Colorado Springs, Bush was heading to Arizona and a Republican Party fund-raiser in Paradise Valley.

Bush's campaigning today in the conservative heart of &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/comp/2002/10/07/37809.html ' target=_blank>Colorado was an effort to counter Kerry's efforts to win a state that has voted Republican in nine of the past 11 presidential elections. One poll shows Bush ahead in Colorado; another shows the two men in a close race.

"Kerry is here to try to make up electoral votes he can't get in the South," said Colorado College political science professor Bob Loevy.

"John Kerry and the &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/fun/2002/04/23/27890.html ' target=_blank>Democrats are setting a tall order for themselves by making a play for Colorado."

In a last-minute flurry of accusations before their final debate, Kerry tried to tie Bush to record oil prices while the president charged that his Democratic opponent had misunderstood the war on terror, reports Houston Chronicle.