http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6214763/site/newsweek/Behind the scenes, the two campaigns could barely contain their disdain for one another. The two sides clashed over the number of undecided voters in the town-hall audience. And they wrangled over a line of tape down the center of the stage that separated both men. Kerry wanted the freedom to wander across the red carpet, according to an aide. The Bush camp dismissed the dispute as gamesmanship, saying the line was there only to help the TV cameras. But the specter of Al Gore—and his 2000 venture into "Bush's space"—loomed over the discussion.
Amid the procedural wrangles, both camps were coping with the fallout of the vice presidential clash. Cheney's aggressive attack on Kerry as "always being on the wrong side of defense issues" helped pave the way for Bush's tough new stump speech. But the vice president also gave the Democrats some new ammunition. Cheney claimed he had never met John Edwards—but within hours, images of the two men together at a prayer breakfast were everywhere. Cheney also stated bluntly that he had "not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11"—contradicting his repeated claims that one of the 9/11 hijackers once met with an Iraqi agent in Prague.
There's little hope that this week's final debate in Arizona will be any less antagonistic. As both campaigns flew out of St. Louis, they were already honing new attack lines. By the time Bush arrived in Waterloo, Iowa, his aides were repeating their new mantra that Kerry couldn't hide from his voting history. "He wants to pretend he doesn't have a record as a liberal," said Karen Hughes. At the same time, on Kerry's plane en route to Cleveland, the senator's aides were staking out their ground for the last debate on domestic issues. Their attack: that Bush cares only about looking after his wealthy buddies. "John Kerry is going to be concerned about the needs of the middle class," said Mike McCurry, a Kerry adviser.
As the debate season draws to a close, the rival campaigns agree on at least one point: the other side needs to win the final contest this week by a big margin to change the course of the race. "Bush has to hit a grand slam to salvage anything from these debates," says Kerry senior adviser David Morehouse. In the Red corner, Bush's chief strategist Matthew Dowd believes Kerry needs "a series of wins" to overcome what he says is Bush's two-point lead in the horse race. In other words, the high-fiving and backslapping over the Tempest in Tempe has already begun.
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