Candidates eye Nevada in homestretch

Kirsten Searer

Monday, Oct. 11, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

Get ready to see some familiar faces around town this week with a focus on one thing: your vote.

Early voting starts Saturday, and this week Nevadans will see President Bush, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and a host of others involved in the campaign.

Kerry is set to address the national convention of the AARP on Thursday to talk about protecting Social Security and lowering the cost of prescription drugs.

Bush is scheduled to attend a morning rally the same day at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Nevada remains dead-even, with a recent Zogby International poll giving Democratic presidential contender John Kerry a one-point lead in the state. The margin of error was 4.3 percentage points.

"I think it's going to be a state that's close until the very end, and a state that both campaigns count as they try to reach 271 electoral votes," said Sean Smith, spokesman for the Kerry campaign in Nevada.

Already this year, Nevada has seen three visits from Bush, four visits from Kerry, four visits from first lady Laura Bush and five visits from Vice President Dick Cheney.

Laura Bush also is scheduled to attend a luncheon fund-raiser Thursday in Lake Tahoe. Teresa Heinz Kerry is expected to be in Reno on Thursday.

Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have made one stop in Nevada each.

Visits from the candidates and prominent supporters are expected to continue up to Election Day, Nov. 2.

"Once early voting starts, it's Election Day every day, and we are going to be doing everything we can with events and surrogates to remind our people the importance of getting to the polls and making their voices heard," Smith said.

Early voting starts Saturday.

The Bush-Cheney campaign is gearing up for a massive grass-roots effort next weekend to contact tens of thousands of Nevadans, said spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. The campaign also will continue to send surrogates -- high-profile people who speak on the candidate's behalf -- to the state, she said.

"Nevada's a state we intend to win," Schmitt said. "In the final 22 days, we are going to make sure Nevadans understand not only what a critical choice they face, but how critical it is that President Bush is their leader for the next four years."

The stream of visits this weekend began as Anne Roosevelt, granddaughter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, told a crowd of about 100 Democrats to talk to their co-workers at the water cooler and their neighboring shoppers at the grocery store line about Kerry.

The Democrats were launching an initiative to knock on 50,000 doors throughout the state this weekend. In a pep talk Roosevelt told them that her grandfather set an example that leaders should buoy their constituents, not infuse them with fear, as she said President Bush has done.

Roosevelt said the Bush administration uses a lot of "fear-producing language."

"We're given to believe that if we change leadership, we'll be a target," she said. "A real leader stands up and says, 'We have right on our side, we have good on our side, we know what to do to dispel evil."'

Democrats hoped to talk to more than 50,000 people who they think could swing toward Kerry, said Michael Kneavy, the Kerry campaign's get-out-the-vote director in Nevada.

Eloise Morales, who lives in Santa Ana, Calif., took time off work to join Democratic efforts here.

"This is really the swing state," she said. "We definitely need the support here in Nevada."

On Sunday retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the military efforts into Afghanistan and Iraq as the head of the United States Central Command, spoke to about 300 people at the Valley View Recreation Center in Henderson.

"I'm not a politician, but I know what a commander-in-chief looks like and we only have one running for president of the United States," Franks said.

Franks, in a short, humorous speech, told the crowd that he has looked Bush in the eyes in tough times and feels he is the right leader for the nation.

"I know him from dark days and dark nights when the decisions were not easily made," he said.

The Clinton administration ignored too many signs that terrorist regimes were gaining strength, including the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Bush, however, sprang to action after Sept. 11, 2001, he said.

"George Bush chose to do something about it," he said.

Bush also raised pay in the military by 20 percent over his term and created more veterans benefits in his four years than Clinton did in eight, Franks said. He, too, encouraged the crowd to talk to everyone they can about the race.

David Wiley, a 51-year-old retired Air Force veteran, said he supports Bush because he shows respect to veterans, unlike Kerry did when he returned from the Vietnam War and criticized efforts there.

"It makes veterans proud to serve under George Bush," Wiley said.

On Tuesday morning presidential nephew George P. Bush, along with several other Hispanic leaders, will make a stop in Las Vegas as part of their "Nos Conocemos" ("We Know Each Other") tour to Hispanic voters.

Nader is scheduled to speak at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday on the second floor of the Moyer Student Union at UNLV. The event is free and open to the public, and Nader is scheduled to discuss his six-month exit strategy for ending the war in Iraq, according to his campaign.

In the next two weeks, Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns or manages 62 television stations, plans to show a documentary that criticizes Kerry's record in Vietnam, according to the New York Times. Sinclair owns KVWB Channel 21 and KFBT Channel 33 in Las Vegas.