Bush, Gore Stump As Minions Attack

Al Gore charged Tuesday that George W. Bush would not be able to keep his promises on education because of his proposals for a $1.3 trillion tax cut.

For his part, Bush, in a show of confidence, held an airport rally in Bristol, Tenn., where he predicted he would carry Gore's home state.

Taking a break from preparing for Wednesday night's second presidential debate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Democrat Gore promoted his plan for a $10,000 tax credit to pay for college tuition for the middle class.

Talking to students, teachers and local officials at Manatee Community College, in Sarasota, Fla., the vice president said he and Bush agree that new accountability is needed to improve school standards and on the importance of maintaining local control over schools. But he said the two had big differences as well.

"Education ought to be more important to our country than ever before, and that's why I want to make it the No. 1 priority in our country," Gore said.

He sought to bring the campaign's focus to education, an issue that traditionally works for Democrats, but where Bush has made some inroads. Gore rejected criticism that Democrats simply want to throw more money at schools.

"I don't think the answer is money alone," said Gore. "We need new ideas, but you still can't get the results we need without new resources."

Bush, meanwhile, assailed the vice president for being out of touch with ordinary citizens, as a Reuters/MSNBC poll showed him gathering momentum on the eve of the second presidential debate.

“I know I'm not supposed to carry (Tennessee), they tell me that Tennessee's all wrapped up,” Bush told some 2,000 supporters at an airport hangar in Bristol, close to the Virginia border.

“After all, the man used to live here,” he said, drawing boos from the crowd.

“He used to call this state home,” Bush went on. “But it seems like it's so long in the distant past, he forgot to trust the people of Tennessee. He forgot what it's like to be out here with the hard-working people.”

The last time a presidential candidate lost his home state was in 1972, when Democrat George McGovern lost South Dakota.

Locked in a close race, Gore's camp took to branding Bush as a bumbler who can't defend his proposals coherently.

"Governor Bush seems incapable of talking about the important issues in this campaign in a coherent way," said Gore deputy campaign manager Mark Fabiani.

Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes responded, telling reporters that, in spending the past few days poking fun of Bush's speaking techniques and fumbles, Democrats had helped lower debate expectations for Bush. "If you listen to them ... he can barely put a sentence together," she said.

Hughes added that Bush did not intend to directly go after what Gore foes see as his tendency to exaggerate and embellish facts.

b>"The vice president does a pretty good job of doing that himself," she said.

The charges and countercharges came as the latest CNN-USA Today-Gallup tracking poll showed Bush eight points ahead of Gore, 50-42 percent. The poll has an error margin of four percent.

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