Super Showdown Continues

In a none-too-subtle attempt to close his party's gender gap, George W. Bush is surrounding himself with women and talking up their issues as he and Republican presidential opponent John McCain head into their Super Tuesday showdown.

"I'm going to predict that that traditional old gender gap that we've heard so much about is going to turn itself inside out," Elizabeth Dole said Friday in Syracuse, joining Bush in barnstorming New York from Long Island to the Canadian border. Dole, a former GOP rival not seen by Bush's side in a month, appeared with the Texas governor at a breast cancer research center.

McCain complained Bush had gone too far with a radio ad criticizing one of the Arizona senator's votes to cut federal funding for breast cancer research. McCain also said third parties were attacking his environmental record on TV at Bush's behest. Bush denied the charge, although Texas investors Sam and Charles Wyly, prominent Bush donors, were behind the spots.

"Somebody is putting in $2 million to try to hijack the campaign here in New York," McCain said. "It's everything I've been fighting against. Two million dollars in the last few days in this campaign can make a difference in a race that is a statistical dead heat."

New York is one of the biggest prizes at stake Tuesday, when 13 states with nearly 60 percent of the delegates needed for the Republican presidential nomination go to the polls.

The ferocity of the fighting underscored the stakes. Polls have shown Bush with a lead in California and Ohio, two other Super Tuesday prizes, while New York is close.

Bush turned to the pillars of Republican power in New York in an effort to snuff McCain's insurgent campaign, but there was controversy even there. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was resisting the McCain-bashing efforts of Gov. George Pataki and other GOP state leaders.

Bush planned to campaign Saturday in Rochester and Binghamton, then Hartford, Conn., before flying home to Austin, Texas. McCain was to campaign in Boston; Portland, Maine; Syracuse, and Rochester.

Friday's flashpoint between McCain and Bush was the Texas governor's commercial arguing that McCain voted against breast cancer research. It followed Bush's focus in recent days on education, another issue that polls show is important to women voters.

McCain said he has repeatedly voted to boost breast cancer research spending and the vote cited in the Bush ad was one where he opposed putting breast cancer money in a military spending measure.

In a new radio ad, the McCain campaign called the Bush spot "shameful."

"The last thing we need is a politician like George Bush spreading fear," says the ad, running in New York. "Reject his negative politics."

Bush rejected the criticism. "The ad speaks to programs that he (McCain) called 'garden-variety pork'," he told reporters after visiting the StonBrook Breast Cancer Research Center on Long Island.

McCain's allies noted that the senator's sister, Sandy McCain Morgan, has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Told of that, Bush said: "All the more reason to remind him of what he said about the research that goes on here. I'm sorry if that's the case; that obviously is very difficult for her and her family."

Later, when McCain watched Bush's response on the evening news, his jaw clenched and he said almost under his breath, "I hope my sister isn't watching television tonight."

McCain also hit back against the third-party advertising in another new radio spot in New York that points out that Texas has the worst toxic air pollution from industrial facilities.

McCain also began airing two new TV spots in New York, California and Ohio. One touts him as the only Republican who can win in November; the other cites his expertise in foreign and military affairs.

The Arizona senator's campaign, in a telephone barrage to New Yorkers, also was targeting the crucial Roman Catholic vote, 46 percent of the state's GOP electorate.

The pitch being given to Catholic voters touts McCain's economic plans and his chances to win in November, but also notes that McCain spoke out against "bigotry" at Bob Jones University in South Carolina. The script does not mention Bush's visit to that school, which McCain has strongly criticized because the governor didn't speak out against its anti-Catholic reputation.

The school also banned interracial dating, although Bob Jones III said Friday on CNN's Larry King Live that the university would drop the policy.