Kerry, Bush duel over medicare, terror war

Bush, jumping to an 11-point lead over his Democratic challenger in new polls, focused on the war on terror, an issue in which voter surveys show him with a clear lead as he seeks a second term in the Nov. 2 election.

On a campaign swing in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Bush said the hostage siege at a Russian school in which 322 people, almost half of them children, were killed, was a "grim reminder of the nature of the terrorists we face."

"That is why this country must be strong and diligent and never yielding. We must bring them to justice," Bush told a rally at a high school in Broadview Heights, Ohio.

A Newsweek poll released on Saturday showed the Bush/Cheney ticket beating Kerry/Edwards by 52 percent to 41 percent in a three-way race with independent candidate Ralph Nader -- a 13-point bounce for Bush since mid-August.

Bush had an identical lead in a Time magazine poll on Friday following months of polls that showed him and Kerry running neck and neck.

Kerry, also campaigning in the pivotal electoral state of Ohio that Bush won narrowly in 2000, emphasized issues like the economy and health care where the president is seen as vulnerable.

The Massachusetts senator questioned the timing of the Bush administration's announcement late on Friday -- before the Labor Day holiday weekend -- that older Americans must pay 17 percent more next year for their government-run health insurance.

"He promised again a couple of nights ago to strengthen Medicare," Kerry told a rally at a baseball stadium in Akron. "Then you wake up when a lot of the news is being hidden by what's happening in the hurricane down in Florida, what's happening in Russia with 200 people tragically killed by terrorists."