Kerry battle plan includes big push in 7 swing states (and Big Dog)

[shawmut]

Kerry battle plan includes big push in 7 swing states

By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff | October 14, 2004


TEMPE, Ariz. -- The Kerry campaign left last night's debate with a battle plan to attack President Bush in seven swing states over the next week -- four of them states that Al Gore won in 2000 yet the current nominee has been hard-pressed to lock up.

Campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said yesterday that some 13,000 volunteers will also be deployed to 21 battleground states to help mobilize voter turnout and aid the state-based staffs, and another 400 "surrogates" to speak on Kerry's behalf, including governors, senators, and, Kerry aides said, former President Clinton, who is recovering from heart surgery.

The campaign will also be broadcasting radio and television messages from Clinton and others into the swing states.

Several Kerry advisers expressed confidence that voter surveys would crown the Democratic nominee as the overall winner of the presidential debates, giving him a surge of momentum heading into the last 19 days of the election. They also pointed to new polls giving Kerry a slight edge in the battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio -- the last of which the president carried in 2000 and, several of his aides say, he almost certainly needs to retain next month to keep the White House.




http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/10/14/kerry_battle_plan_includes_big_push_in_7_swing_states/