Trail Bytes
As the presidential race heads into the home stretch, CBS News reporters are out on the road traveling with the Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards campaigns.
Read their dispatches and keep up with the latest campaign news in Trail Bytes, updated daily on CBSNews.com
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
As part of his strategy to inoculate himself on Iraq, President Bush declared that even if he had known there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, he still would have taken the U.S. to war. And he claimed John Kerry agrees it was the right decision, although Kerry has said no such thing.
Mr. Bush told a campaign rally Tuesday evening in Panama City, Fla. that, after months of questioning his motives and his credibility, Kerry "now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq."
What Kerry actually said was that he still would have voted to authorize military action - because the president should have that authority - though he thinks the war was launched on faulty intelligence and without a plan to win the peace.
Expect the Iraq refrain to be part of candidate Bush's stump speech again Wednesday as he heads deep into the Sun Belt and campaigns in New Mexico and Arizona with Sen. John McCain by his side.
What does Mr. Bush think of dumping the federal income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax? He says it's an "interesting idea" and ought to be "seriously" explored. But in answer to question at a Niceville, Florida (yes, Niceville), Mr. Bush conceded the federal income tax code is complex, and he believes the simpler the better.
And lastly, the president admits he's in awe of the Oval Office. So, too, are many visitors who plan on reading him the riot act but, on entering the Oval Office, are overcome by the majesty of the place. And so is his mother: Mr. Bush told a rally that when his mother enters the Oval Office, even she won't tell him what to do.
--Mark Knoller
SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS.
During a Tuesday morning discussion at a Las Vegas middle school, Kerry focused on the debate about whether to use Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a depository for the nation's nuclear waste, leaving some wondering why he would devote time to what's considered mainly a Nevada-centric issue in a state that has all of 5 electoral votes.
Clearly, the mindset of the campaign is to work for blocs of votes that are easily anti-Bush but if not paid attention to, could slip through the Democrats' fingers. Aides have pointed to Al Gore's failure to win West Virginia's 5 electoral votes and barely winning New Mexico's 4 in 2000, both states that went easily for Clinton just four years prior, and two states that Kerry has spent several days in this year.
A perfect example of this extra attention is his courting of Native Americans over the weekend in New Mexico – a group that makes up almost 10 percent of that state's population.
Nevada's 5 electoral votes, which Gore missed out on in 2000, could be the difference in a tight race this November and Kerry, in his third visit to the state this year, is trying to take advantage of a potential Bush liability.
Tuesday, he tried to paint Bush as a flip-flopper on the Yucca Mountain issue, accusing him of promising to fight the movement of nuclear waste to the site during the 2000 campaign, then green-lighting by approving a plan to use Yucca as a depository.
"Yucca Mountain to me is a symbol of the recklessness and the arrogance with which they are willing to proceed with respect to the safety issues and concerns of the American people," said Kerry.
The Bush campaign attempted to turn the tables and say that Kerry flip-flopped on the issue by having voted for some bills that included language that would have permitted sending waste to Yucca.
"Republicans try to point to a few procedural votes," said Kerry, adding that whenever he had the opportunity to vote straight up-or-down on Yucca, he's always voted against it.
Ultimately, Kerry said, "It's about promises kept and promises broken."
Later in the day, Kerry attended a rally at UNLV, where Kerry openly estimated there were 15,000 in attendance.
"I'm happy to hear that because I took the over on 11,000," he quipped.
During his 30-minute speech, he hit his standard stump lines about health care, education, jobs and the economy.
Kerry also made a bit of news regarding the Iraq issue saying, "I read somewhere that the Bush folks were trying to say that we changed positions on this, that. I've been consistent all along and I thought that the United States needed to stand up to Saddam Hussein and I voted to stand up to Saddam Hussein but I thought we ought to do it right. I thought we ought to reach out to other countries we ought to build an international coalition we ought to exhaust the remedies available to us."
Before continuing west on Wednesday, Kerry will hold a health care event at a senior center in Henderson, Nevada. Then his "Believe in America" bus caravan rolls onto the Golden State for a night in Los Angeles. On Thursday, he'll give a speech in L.A. before ditching the buses in favor of his campaign plane for the last couple of days of his cross-country tour.
--Steve Chaggaris
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY
The vice president likes the town hall Q&A format and he took full advantage of it Wednesday in Joplin, Mo. Not only did he speak for nearly an hour but he was introduced by his daughter Liz, and for the first time shared the stage and microphone with wife Lynne.
"This is really fun for us because, you know, it's kind of unpredictable, unexpected," said Lynne.
In the past, Cheney has peppered his introduction with mentions on the economy and tax cuts, but today's opening remarks concentrated solely on the war on terror.
Referencing 9/11, he said, "They had been planning that attack since 1996, five years before. It took them that long to get all the pieces put together."
"When they put their mind on a target like that they operate according to their timetable not anyone else's," he said, alluding to criticism of the timing of the terror alert announced two weekends ago.
The vice president answered questions on a range of issues, including gas prices and stem cell research. And he was practically licking his chops when asked about John Kerry's Senate voting record.
"They left out the next 20 years," he said about Kerry's DNC speech after the senator had touted his time in Vietnam. He called the DNC a "re-invention convention."
Lynne answered questions about school vouchers and church/state separation. She also told a story about what she wore to her first date with Dick, and how she was sure it was that red dress that secured a second.
Before the speech, the crowd was shown the Kerry flip-flop Internet ad that was released during the DNC. There were also three campaign cameras in the center shooting video for a potential TV commercial.
--Josh Gross