US President George W. Bush set the wolves on Democratic rival Senator John Kerry in a new TV advertisement on Friday, while Kerry stepped up efforts to woo the women's vote for the US election.
Bush's new ad infuriated the Democratic camp. Kerry's running mate John Edwards called it "despicable."
The new commercial aims to portray Kerry, who is running neck-and-neck with Bush in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 2 election, as weak in the war on terror.
A female narrator accuses Kerry of being dangerously weak on national security, while a pack of wolves -- standing in for terrorists -- prowl menacingly onscreen.
"And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm," the narrator says.
Bush also stepped up his attacks in campaign speeches in the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Bush seized on a comment by a senior Kerry foreign policy advisor that the war on terrorism declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes was "just a metaphor."
"I've got news," Bush said. "Anyone who thinks we're fighting a metaphor does not understand the enemy we face, and has no idea how to win the war and keep America secure."
"You cannot lead our nation to decisive victory on which the security of every American family depends if you do not see the true dangers of the post-September-the-11th era," Bush said, adding attacks over Kerry's policies on taxes, healthcare, retirement funds and abortion for good measure.
Bush, meanwhile, gained on Kerry in a new Time magazine poll out on Friday.
If the Nov. 2 election were held today, 51 percent of 1,200 likely voters questioned between Oct. 19 and Oct. 21 said they would vote for Bush, 46 percent for Kerry and 2 percent for independent consumer crusader Ralph Nader.
Last week's numbers were 48 percent for Bush, 47 percent for Kerry and 3 percent for Nader.
The Kerry campaign accused Bush of using "the politics of fear."
"They have stooped so low now that they are using a pack of wolves running around a forest trying to scare you and trying to scare the American people," Edwards, a senator from North Carolina, told a rally in Florida. "The president is continuing to try to scare America in his speeches and ads in a despicable and contemptible way."
Kerry concentrated his campaign on the battleground state of Wisconsin and the key female vote.
He was joined by Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of assassinated former president John F. Kennedy, as he made the case that Bush had deserted working women and "turned back the clock" on equal pay.
"The women of America can write the future of America if they go to the polls and make their voice heard," Kerry said in a speech at the University of Wisconsin.
"No one in the White House understands the challenges they face. No matter how tough it gets, no one in the White House seems to be listening," he said.
Shoring up sluggish support among women is one of Kerry's key aims as he enters the final stretch of the campaign.
Women voted for Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election by 54 to 43 percent but polls show Kerry struggling to match that. The Washington Post had Bush leading among women 50 to 46 percent in a recent poll.
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