Second Strings A-Stumping
The day after Al Gore and George W. Bush faced off in their second debate, their running mates will toil away on the campaign trail.
On Thursday, Joe Lieberman will head deep into the heart of Texas - while Dick Cheney will talk about Social Security and Medicare in key battleground states.
Lieberman, the Democratic running mate, will stump in the home turf of Bush, the Lone Star State's governor and the GOP presidential nominee.
Among Lieberman's stops are Midland - the town where Bush spent his childhood and returned as an adult to work in the oil industry - and Odessa, where Lieberman said he planned to highlight a heavily polluting factory to criticize the governor's environmental record.
Lieberman watched the second Gore-Bush debate on Wednesday night with activists at San Diego High School. The Connecticut senator said Gore showed during the prime-time encounter that he had a better understanding of the problems caused by global warming than Bush.
"People understand there's a problem here and if we don't do something about it, this good earth of ours is not going to be the way it is for our children and grandchildren," the senator said.
Lieberman's debate-watching party in San Diego capped a busy two days for him on the West Coast. His regional campaign swing netted $4.2 million from a series of fund-raisers from the Pacific Northwest to California's Silicon Valley.
As for GOP running mate Cheney, he will troll for votes among elderly Americans in battleground states - stopping at a senior center, a veterans' hall, and an American Legion post on Thursday to tout Bush's Social Security and Medicare plans.
Cheney, the former defense secretary and congressman, will spend the balance of the week trying to convince seniors in Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin that Bush has better solutions for the two government programs that are generally the highest priority for senior voters.
In tackling Medicare and the thorny question of how to help seniors pay for their prescription drugs, Cheney is addressing a health care issue that typically favors Democrats. Polls have shown that voters believe Democrats are better at handling health care. Cheney and Bush want to change that perception.
In Chicago on Wednesday, Cheney said the Clinton-Gore administration has had eight years to fix the problems in Social Security and Medicare - and failed to do so.
"They have taken a pass on any kind of reforming of the system," Cheney said after a speech to senior citizens in Franklin Park, Ill.
Bush's Social Security plan calls for giving people the option of investing some of their taxes in private individual retirement accounts similar to 401(k) accounts offered by employers.
Bush would also spend $158 billion to redesign Medicare and let seniors choose between the existing program and private health plans, both of which would be required to required to offer prescription drug coverage.
In the short term, Bus has proposed giving states $48 billion to design their own programs for helping low and moderate income seniors pay for their medicines.
Gore has different plans for both programs - he opposes diverting Social Security money to personal accounts and wants to offers tax credits to low-income and middle-income people to match their retirement investments.
On Medicare, Gore wants to add a $253 billion prescription drug plan to that program to give free complete coverage to elderly poor and cost-sharing benefit to others.