To The Battlegrounds!

President Bush left Washington for battleground Pennsylvania on Friday, as his Democratic challengers moved from raising cash in Manhattan to rallies in crucial West Virginia and New Mexico.

Playing to his strength, Mr. Bush is campaigning in the small-town Republican heart of Pennsylvania, trying to win a state that Democratic presidential candidates have captured in each of the last three elections.

Mr. Bush has averaged a trip a month to Pennsylvania this year and Friday's bus tour was to be the 30th of his presidency to the state. The state, the nation's fifth-largest Election Day prize, has 21 electoral votes.

The president's campaigning is aimed at turning out supporters from the heavily Republican center of the state to offset Democratic votes in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

In his first stop Friday, Mr. Bush addresses the war on terrorism and the economy in remarks to 2,800 supporters on a college campus in Kutztown, Pa., before heading by bus to the small cities of Lancaster and York.

Stopping in Kutztown is a smart political move for Mr. Bush because it is in three media markets including Philadelphia, and Mr. Bush must do well in November in four counties outside Philadelphia in order to win the state, said G. Terry Madonna, who runs the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster.

Pennsylvania has lost more than 150,000 manufacturing jobs since Mr. Bush took office and his bus tour far from problem-plagued industrial regions will focus on the party faithful. A poll by the Pennsylvania Economy League says concern over the economy is a major issue in the state.

The Democratic presidential ticket of Kerry and John Edwards — or "kid" as Whoopi Goldberg called the newest addition to the team — got about $7.5 million richer at the Democratic bash held Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan.

At a star-studded fund raiser, the comedian greeted Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry, and then peered into the crowd looking for Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth Edwards. "And where's the kid? Where's young Mr. Edwards? And, where's my girl, where's my girl? Stand up miss girl."

Teasing Kerry, Goldberg said: "Not that you're not youthful. You're very youthful, John. But he's youthful. He looks like he's 18!"

Taking the stage at the end of the evening, Edwards said: "Whoopi Goldberg said earlier tonight that she was afraid she wasn't going to get a phone call to be here." Then, he added the punch line: "I can relate to that."

Kerry joined in: "John Edwards thinks he was worried he wasn't going to get a phone call. I was worried I wasn't going to get anybody at home!"

Ticket prices for the evening started at $250 for the concert alone to $25,000 for the concert and a reception. The show was sold out with 5,500, though not every donor attended.

The money raised from Thursday's concert will be divided between Kerry's campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Last month, a similar concert in Los Angeles raised $5 million.

Musician Jon Bon Jovi opened Thursday's event, saying: "The beginning of the future starts right here tonight." Then he launched into the Beatles 1969 optimistic melody "Here Comes The Sun."

Actress Meryl Streep welcomed the new team with "President Kerry. Vice President Edwards … Oops! I got ahead of myself."

The celebrities didn't hold back, bashing Mr. Bush at every opportunity.

"This guy's as bright as an egg timer," actor Chevy Chase said, ridiculing the president for his tendency to sometimes flub the English language. Referring to presidential hobbies, Chase rattled off a list. "Clinton plays the sax, John plays the guitar, and the president's a liar," he said matter-of-factly, drawing laughs and cheers.

Mr. Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt hit back.

"It is a great example of John Kerry's priorities that on the day he said he did not have time to receive his intelligence briefing on threats to America, he found time to attend a Hollywood fund-raiser, filled with enough hate and vitriol to make Michael Moore blush," Schmidt said.

Schmidt was referring to Kerry's interview on CNN earlier Thursday in which Kerry, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had been offered a briefing from the Bush administration about new terror warnings, but told King, "I just haven't had time." Kerry then told King he would be briefed later this week.

The Democratic ticket was holding a rally at Raleigh County Memorial Airport in Beckley, W.Va. and then heading to New Mexico and a rally at a Hispanic center in Albuquerque. The team heads to Edwards' home state of North Carolina on Saturday.

A new AP-Ipsos poll finds that while Kerry solidified his base and gained some ground in the South, he is slightly behind Mr. Bush. The survey found voters increasingly confident about the economy.

The poll found Mr. Bush slightly leading Kerry 49 percent to 45 percent with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 3 percent. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The Bush-Kerry matchup was tied a month ago. Nader has slipped slightly since May, when he had 7 percent.

Meanwhile, Vice President Dick Cheney's future is the subject of renewed speculation after former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York, the only prominent Republican to speak publicly about replacing Cheney, said that Mr. Bush should replace Cheney with either Secretary of State Colin Powell or Arizona Sen. John McCain.

McCain scoffs at the idea. "I think the day that President Bush drops Vice President Cheney will be a cold day in Gila Bend, Arizona," he said. "I see no scenario in which the president would replace Dick Cheney."