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The Morning Grind / DayAhead

Scaring Iowa

By John Mercurio
CNN Political Unit

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It's about 80 miles from Mason City to Waterloo, a straight shot down Route 18 through northeastern Iowa. But at 11 a.m. ET today, there won't be much back-and-forth. Half of Iowa will be with President Bush in Mason City; the other half with John Kerry in Waterloo.

By sundown, we assume, all of Iowa will be scared.

We're deep into the "scary" phase of this campaign, no? This usually reaches a climax around Halloween, at which time the weakest among us, press and politicos, throw jack-o'-lanterns and opponents together in some clever holiday package. (CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" has already pulled the trigger. Cooper began last night with a ghoulish light show and this opening line, "Halloween is a week from Sunday, but George Bush and John Kerry hope you're already afraid of things that go bump in the night.")

He can be forgiven, of course. It's hard to resist, what with Kerry and Bush already throwing the s-word around with abandon. We're being "scared," we're told, about everything from Social Security, flu vaccines, a nuclear 9/11, voter suppression and a military draft.

Perhaps the "scariest" candidate yesterday was Vice President Dick Cheney, who said the "biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons that have ever been used before against us, whether it's a biological agent or a nuclear or chemical weapon of some kind that would threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans ... not just 3,000." Cheney's line wasn't new. But it was ... scary.

Bush holds a rally in Mason City before heading to Minnesota and Wisconsin later today. With Bush-Cheney continuing its one-two punch on the senator's national security creds, Kerry hits back in Waterloo and then joins wife Teresa for a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He overnights in Ohio again.

Aides say Bush will continue to hammer home themes heard yesterday in Florida, where he criticized Kerry's abilities to handle the war. "At a time of a great threat to our country, at a time of great challenge in the world, the commander in chief must stand on principle, not on the shifting sands of political convenience," the president said.

In his Iowa speech today, called "A Fresh Start for America's Security," Kerry will say America is fighting, and must win, two wars -- Iraq and terrorism. Kerry will argue that the United States "must bring the world with us in Iraq by giving other countries a real say, and a real stake, and treat them with respect," according to excerpts released last night.

Listing mistakes he says Bush made on both wars, Kerry will say, "By treating other countries with contempt, President Bush gave them an excuse to stay on the sidelines instead of shouldering their responsibilities. The president didn't even try. I will and I believe others will follow." Countering questions the president has raised on his leadership abilities, Kerry is expected to say, "The president likes to say he's a leader. Mr. President, look behind you. There's no one there. It's not leadership if no one follows."

Kerry will again say, "The president's failings in Iraq have made us weaker, not stronger, in the war on terrorism. That is the hard truth. The president refuses to acknowledge it. But terrorism experts around the world do."

And here's the pitch for women, "No American mother should have to lie awake at night worrying whether her children will be safe at school the next day," he'll say. "No one should have to fear that students on a graduation trip to our nation's Capitol or one of our greatest cities might be attacked."

There you go. Now you don't have to watch the senator's speech.

Kerry will be joined in Waterloo by, among others, Kristen Breitweiser, the 9/11 widow featured in the TV ad his camp started airing yesterday.

Return of Clinton?

Meanwhile, former President Clinton will likely join Kerry on the campaign trail in Philadelphia next week, a senior Kerry adviser said today. This would, of course, be Clinton's first campaign appearance since undergoing quadruple bypass surgery September 6.

Details of Clinton's possible appearance are being worked out, the Kerry adviser said.

Kerry earlier today told affiliate WGAL, "I think it's possible that in the next few days former President Clinton will be here. We're all working. I'm not going to leave any vote unasked for."

At a rally last night in Dayton, Ohio, Kerry said he had been talking with Clinton right before he came out on stage about how Bush was trying to use fear to manipulate the polls. "He said, 'You know, when the other guy wants you to stop thinking and is trying to scare you into not thinking, and you want Americans to think about their future, it's pretty clear who you ought to be voting for,'" Kerry told some 7,000 people who filled the Dayton Dragons baseball stadium.

Another surrogate likely to hit the trail in the campaign's closing days is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Schwarzenegger plans a high-profile trip to Ohio on the weekend before the November 2 election.

Schwarzenegger acknowledged that he has suggested a Columbus campaign trip to the Bush team "simply because I introduced his father there in 1988 and also in 1992 -- and it's a place where we do business. It's kind of a second home for me, you know,'' the Chronicle reported.

No, Arnold, we didn't know that Ohio was a second home for you.

Three days after The Boston Globe endorsed Kerry, his other hometown paper is weighing in. In today's editions, the Boston Herald is backing Bush. "While we are in the unusual position of doing so in the face of the candidacy of a native son, our choice was not a close call," the paper says in its editorial. (Like the Globe's endorsement, this is not a big surprise. The Herald has a conservative reputation and endorsed Bush in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996 and Bush's dad in 1992.)

CNN's Kelly Wallace contributed to this report.


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