As Governor George Bush draws ahead in the opinion polls, the tone of the presidential campaign is getting nastier with the Gore campaign attacking what it calls Mr Bush's "bumbling babblings". For the past week, Mr Bush's poll ratings have risen as his campaign ridiculed what it calls Mr Gore's "exaggerations and embellishments". Mr Bush's director of communications, Karen Hughes, dubbed Mr Gore a "serial exaggerater" on CNN at the weekend.
The Gore campaign is to launch an assault on Mr Bush's tendency to mix up figures, mispronounce words and garble his syntax. Associated Press had to put out an embarrassed correction to one of its own bloopers when it referred to Mr Bush's "pubic policy proposals" instead of "public policy proposals".
Mr Gore's campaign spokesman, Chris Lehane, said: "We're going to hold Bush to presidential standards when it comes to explaining his public policy proposals. Thus far he has not even met the `Quayle standard'." This is a reference to the former Republican vice-president, Dan Quayle, who was widely ridiculed for gaffes including misspelling "potato".
The Democratic National Committee has opened a site on its website to highlight Bush policy bloopers. It began yesterday with a video webcast of Mr Bush getting tangled up trying to explain his $1.3 trillion tax cut.
The Gore campaign insisted yesterday that this was not a tit-for-tat riposte to the Bush attacks on Mr Gore's credibility. Mr Gore plans to stay aloof from the mud-slinging so he can say he is sticking by his pledge not to indulge in "personal attacks". His running mate, Senator Joe Lieberman, will go on a "failed leadership" tour of Texas this week to highlight Mr Bush's record in the state on health care, the environment and gun control.
The Bush campaign spokesman, Dan Bartlett, said this was a "hastily arranged strategy in reaction to the sustained criticism of Al Gore's credibility and trouble with the facts. So now they're lashing out by launching Al Gore's lead attack dog , Joe Lieberman, on an `exaggeration and distortion tour'."
The Gore campaign is presumably concerned about Mr Bush's surge in the polls in the past week. The daily CNN/USA Today tracking poll has Mr Bush leading Mr Gore by 49 percentage points to 41 in contrast to Mr Gore's 11-point lead a week ago.
Mr Bush has also closed the gap with Mr Gore in the daily Reuters/MSNBC poll where the latter leads by one point. The pollster, John Zogby, said the race was "deadlocked" and that "the most ominous sign for Gore is that this is the first time since the tracking survey began that he has gone below 44 per cent, although Bush has yet to capitalise".
With the polls so tight, there will be increased pressure on the two candidates to perform well in their second debate tomorrow in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.