Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry has promised to bring US troops home from Iraq "with honour" and told cheering crowds of middle Americans that he would upgrade schools and expand health care.
Still seeking an elusive bounce in public opinion polls, Mr Kerry also accused US President George W. Bush of having squandered a robust economy and pledged to balance the federal budget and spend responsibly.
Mr Kerry has seemed to get little, if any, boost in the polls from last week's Democratic convention. But the four-term senator from Massachusetts has since enjoyed enthusiastic crowds that have often swelled into the thousands.
A number of surveys show Mr Bush and Mr Kerry locked in an extremely close race, with many states such as Wisconsin and Iowa still up for grabs.
"We are going to build our relations all around this planet," said Kerry, who has accused Bush of alienating allies in the US-led war in Iraq. "We are going to get those troops home with honour."
The line echoed Mr Richard Nixon's 1968 "peace with honour" campaign pledge to end the Vietnam War, which Kerry served in and later opposed. The pledge helped Nixon win the presidency, but a peace deal was not reached until 1973 and US-backed South Vietnam fell to the communist North in 1975.
Kerry released a campaign book on Monday, "Our Plan for America: Stronger at Home, Respected in the World."
Yesterday, he highlighted the section on the economy.
It calls for submitting budget proposals to Congress that explain how every new measure would be paid for.
Toward this end, he proposes another crack at implementing a so-called line-item veto, which would allow a president to strike down sections of bills he sees as wasteful spending.
In 1996, Congress passed a line-item veto, but the Supreme Court later struck it down, saying it gave the president powers not authorised by the Constitution.
A Kerry aide said the Democratic nominee believes the constitutional hurdle could be cleared by giving Congress an up-or-down vote to approve specific vetoes.
"I'm going to resubmit a line-item veto structure that will pass constitutional muster," Mr Kerry said, "and get the waste and the pork and the special-interest deals out of the system and get children and taxpayers back in the system."