US: Battered by negative television advertising that has made his Vietnam combat record a major election issue, Senator John Kerry yesterday hit back at the Bush campaign, accusing it of turning to the tactics of "fear and smear" while having nothing to say about issues such as jobs and healthcare.
In a speech in New York, the Democratic candidate sought to keep the high ground in the increasingly bitter presidential election fight, at one point getting the audience in Cooper Hall to stop booing at the mention of next week's Republican Convention in New York.
Calling for a "truthful and robust debate" on the issues facing American people, Mr Kerry said his opponents "have obviously decided that some people will believe anything, no matter how fictional or how far-fetched, if they just repeat it often enough.
"That's how they have run their administration, that's how they're running their campaign, and that's how they will run their convention. You can't cover up reality with a few empty slogans."
Hundreds of supporters queued for up to two hours to pass security and attend the event, held in the hall where President Abraham Lincoln made his 1860 speech against slavery.
Aides to Mr Kerry told reporters that the hard-nosed speech had three aims: to get ahead of the Republican convention, when President George Bush will set out his goals for the next four years, to highlight the choice for American voters, and to engage the Bush campaign directly on the attack ads run by the independent Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group attacking his Vietnam record.
The ads, paid for by major Republican donors in Texas, charge Mr Kerry with lying to get his medals in Vietnam and have eroded Mr Kerry's support at the polls. A new CNN poll yesterday showed Mr Kerry and Mr Bush neck and neck at 45 per cent each.
Mr Bush on Monday denounced campaign commercials funded by independent groups, known as 527s, and praised Mr Kerry's military service, but did not specifically denounce the claims made by the Vietnam veterans in the ad.
The Republican campaign has been hit for months by ads paid for by pro-Kerry groups like Moveon.org, and have been slow to encourage the same tactics, assuming wrongly that they would be banned by the Supreme Court for breach of a new electoral law.
Mr Mark Green, a leading New York Democrat and unpaid adviser to Mr Kerry, said before the speech that election law, which bans direct collusion between candidates' campaigns and 527s, would not be clarified until after the November 2nd election.
"I'm going to a Moveon.org party tonight," he said. "If asked to co-ordinate \ I will refuse, I would say I didn't know. If I was a paid adviser, any co-operation would be definitely illegal."
The independent groups are, however, now driving much of the campaign debate and hardly need steering from the candidates. Republicans claim that there is collusion between the Kerry campaign and its support groups, while Democrats point to the fact that the major backers of the anti-Kerry ad are associates of Mr Karl Rove, Mr Bush's political adviser.
Neither charge can be directly verified.
The Kerry campaign made no bones yesterday, however, accusing the president of backing the anti-Kerry Vietnam veterans. In a new ad approved by the Democratic candidate, a narrator says: "Instead of solutions, George Bush's campaign supports a front group attacking John Kerry's military record. Attacks called smears, lies. Senator McCain calls them dishonest. Bush smeared John McCain four years ago. Now, he's doing it to John Kerry."
In his speech yesterday Mr Kerry urged voters to look past the misleading sound bites, slogans and attacks coming from the Republican convention next week and to watch as they disguise the president's failed record.
He accused Mr Bush of presiding over record job loss, increased taxes on the middle class, skyrocketing health care costs and squandered US leadership in the world and of failing to deliver on promises made at their 2000 convention.
In response to charges that Mr Kerry has not released his military records, Kerry aides said they had posted everything in his navy file on his campaign Internet site.