Clinton Lends Kerry A Hand

Sen. John Kerry got a boost Monday from the biggest star in the Democratic galaxy, as former President Clinton joined him at a huge rally in Philadelphia, just seven weeks after Mr. Clinton underwent heart bypass surgery.

"If this isn't good for my heart, I don't know what is," a smiling, energetic Mr. Clinton proclaimed at an open-air rally in Philadelphia. Local fire department officials estimated the crowd at 100,000.

Democratic strategists hoped Mr. Clinton's appearance in the final week of the campaign would provide a jolt of excitement that would help energize the Democratic base and attract undecided voters who had supported Clinton.

"From time to time, I have been called the comeback kid. In eight days, John Kerry is going to make America the comeback country," Mr. Clinton said.

The former two-term president said he hoped his involvement on behalf of the Massachusetts senator "can affect a few votes."

Republicans are "trying to scare the undecided voters about John Kerry and they're trying to scare the decided voters away from the polls, '' said Mr. Clinton, who also planned a solo campaign event in Florida later on Monday.

The former president smiled, waved and shook hands with some of those in the crowd at Love Park in downtown Philadelphia. Some supporters waved signs with "8" on them, signifying the number of days left to the election.

"Isn't it great to have Bill Clinton back on the trail?" Kerry said, drawing thunderous applause.

Kerry also hammered the Bush administration for "unbelievable incompetence" over the disappearance of hundreds of tons of powerful explosives in Iraq.

"George W. Bush has failed the test of commander in chief," Kerry said.

The disclosure that 380 tons of explosives had disappeared from a former Iraqi military installation was cited by Kerry as fresh evidence that Mr. Bush went to war with Iraq ill-prepared to deal with the chaos and insurgency that followed.

President Bush, meanwhile, launched a new attack on Kerry's policies on Iraq and the war on terror.

Speaking in Colorado, Mr. Bush reworked one of Kerry's criticisms of the war and said Kerry has "the wrong strategy for the wrong country at the wrong time."

Mr. Bush said Kerry won't be able to bring the Iraq war to a successful conclusion since ''you can't win a war you don't believe in fighting.''

He said Kerry is sending the wrong message to Iraqis, whom he says need to know that the U.S. "will not cut and run."

Mr. Bush said when it comes to Iraq, "protest is not a policy" and "retreat is not a strategy." And, he added, "failure is not an option."

In an ABC interview aired Monday, Mr. Bush again defended his decision to go to war with Iraq.

"I calculated as best I could the cost of going to war. ... It is a very, very heavy decision for the commander in chief. You can't put a price tag on a person's life," Mr. Bush said. "If the commander in chief withdraws before the mission is completed, it's too great a price."

Mr. Bush said it was "essential that we succeed in Iraq ... because if we do not succeed in Iraq … the terrorists will rejoice."

Asked about the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States before the election, a threat the administration has repeatedly raised, Mr. Bush said, "We don't have actionable intelligence to say there's an attack, and of course if we did, we'd be moving heaven and earth to stop it," the president said.

Asked if he has considered the fact that he could lose, Mr. Bush replied, "I'm not there yet."

Polls showed the race growing tighter with just eight days left until the election. An ABC News poll had the candidates essentially tied with 49 percent for Mr. Bush and 48 percent for Mr. Kerry, within a 2.5-point margin of error. The president had a 5-point lead in that poll last week.

A Reuters/Zogby survey gave Mr. Bush a 48-46 percent lead, also within the margin of error; the same poll was 47-45 percent last week, indicating fewer respondents are undecided. The Washington Post, which gave the president a lead of six points on Thursday, has Mr. Bush up 49-48 percent, within the margin.

The Reuters/Zogby poll had Mr. Bush up in the battleground states of Ohio and New Mexico, and Kerry ahead in Michigan. Statistical ties were seen in Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

With only a few states left on both sides' target lists, a now-familiar coincidence of scheduling has the two candidates spending the night in the same state: Mr. Bush in La Crosse, Wis., and Kerry about 200 miles away in Green Bay. Mr. Bush was also coming close to crossing paths with Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, who was stumping in Racine, Wis., and Dubuque, Iowa, on Monday.