Democrats said President George W. Bush's post-convention bounce in public opinion polls was triggered by "four days of mean, vicious attacks" on John Kerry, and would be short-lived.
They vowed a nonstop two-month offensive as Kerry made personnel changes at the top of his campaign for the final sprint to Election Day on Nov. 2.
Bush campaigned on Sunday in West Virginia, telling supporters a Democratic administration would "stifle job creation" with tax increases.
Both campaigns forged ahead without waiting for the traditional end-of-summer kickoff, sparring over the tone of the contest, two wars 30 years apart and Bush's domestic performance.
"After a week of relentless negativity, we will be fighting back using Bush's own record on the economy, jobs and health care," Democratic Party chief Terry McAuliffe told reporters.
Although payroll jobs have grown by 1.7 million in the last 12 months, the economy still has lost 913,000 jobs overall since Bush took office.
Both sides said the race probably would tighten after several national polls over the weekend showed Bush opening a 10-point or larger lead.
"The thing about a bounce is, it goes up and then it comes down," said Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill.
"At the end of the day, this is going to be a very, very tight race," said Bush re-election chairman Marc Racicot.
With many Democrats outside the Kerry term urging the candidate to take steps to reinvigorate his campaign, Kerry has moved John Sasso, a longtime adviser and Boston operative who once ran the presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis, from the Democratic National Committee to a top spot inside his campaign.
Bush told a rally in Parkersburg, West Virginia, ``This Labor Day weekend, it is important for American workers to know that my opponent wants to tax your jobs.''
However, Kerry has said he would restore taxes to pre-Bush levels only for people earning more than $200,000, and would cut them for middle- and low-income earners.
Bush won the state by 6 percentage points in 2000, and polls show him again holding a lead, even though Democrats wield a 2-1 advantage in voter registration.
Some Democrats have complained that Kerry waited too long before fully responding to attacks on his military service in Vietnam.
Cahill defended the timing of the campaign's response. "These were baseless lies. We answered it on our own time. And we were backed up by the facts," she said.
McAuliffe told reporters Democrats would seek to counter "four days of mean vicious attacks" from Republicans, and said Kerry was doing well in some states Bush carried in 2000, mentioning Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire.
Meanwhile, six in 10 Americans called economic conditions poor or only fair, while only 32 percent called conditions good or excellent, according to a new Time magazine poll.
The poll showed Americans evenly split on Bush's handling of the economy, with 49 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving. However, 57 percent said they felt they had not personally benefited from his tax cuts.
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