Politics

Quick Return To Battleground States

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 4, 2000 / 3:43 PM EDT / CBS

George W. Bush and Al Gore, fueled by their first presidential debate, returned to the campaign trail Wednesday to reinforce images they left with millions of TV viewers.

Their chosen stops were in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the Texas governor and the vice president hope to build on their performances.

Gore started back on the campaign trail in Warren, Ohio, a battleground state that has been carried by every Republican ever elected to the White House.

"I am running for president in order to fight for your family," he told cheering supporters, echoing what has become his standard campaign theme.

Gore hit issues he stressed in the debate: Social Security and prescription drugs, paying down the national debt, and a targeted tax cut as opposed to Bush's proposed $1.3 trillion cut which the vice president claims would benefit heavily the richest one percent of the population.

Bush in West Chester, Pa. (AP)SIZE>

Picking up on Bush's closing criticism on Tuesday night of his fund-raising practices, Gore repeated his line to a cheering crowd that "I think it is better to spend time attacking America's problems than attack people personally."

Bush, in another key state, picked up his themes of fighting big government. Bush defended his proposals against Gore's “fuzzy math,” as he put it during the debate.

“My opponent, he trusts the government. He wants to expand the federal government,” Bush told a West Chester, Pa., rally of about 1,000 supporters, who responded with boos directed at Gore.

“He learned to talk about numbers,” Bush continued as the suburban Philadelphia crowd chanted, “No fuzzy math, no fuzzy math.”

In this close presidential contest, neither candidate was seen as the clear victor in Tuesday's face-off, though Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes called the debate "a defining moment."