Final debate brings battle home

By Rob Watson
BBC correspondent in Phoenix, Arizona

John Kerry goes into his third and final face-off with President Bush on Wednesday evening expected to win it, at least in theory.

Bush is out to win Colorado for the second time

The debate, being held at Arizona State University in suburb of the state capital, Phoenix, will focus on domestic policy.

Poll after poll suggests Mr Kerry leads George Bush on every domestic issue, apart from one - taxation.

Expect the president to repeat his allegation that John Kerry is a tax-and-spend liberal - one of the deadliest insults in American politics and, in recent years at least, a very effective one.

But the problem the president faces, and which John Kerry is sure to exploit, is that many Americans feel the economy is worse off than when he took office.

Testing attack lines

The two debates so far have helped John Kerry close the gap with the president.

Ahead of the debates, President Bush had a five-point lead in national polls.

Republicans had been confident of a Bush win and looked to the debates to give the president a commanding lead.

However, with a disappointing performance in the first debate, most polls suggest the race for the White House is now neck-and-neck.

Election issues Who's ahead in the polls?

But the same polls also suggest the president is still seen as being a stronger leader and more straightforward than his challenger - qualities that often trump everything else.

The day before the debate, President Bush tested his lines of attack in front of crowds in Colorado and Arizona.

At a rally in Colorado Springs, Mr Bush continued to question Mr Kerry's credibility, saying that the debates had highlighted clear differences between the two candidates on issues ranging from healthcare to the war on terror.

Mr Bush repeated what has become one of his favourite attacks against Mr Kerry, that the senator "can run from his record, but he cannot hide".

Colorado has consistently voted Republican. In 2000 it handed Mr Bush an eight-point victory.

But, the race has tightened in the state, and polls showed that the president's approval rating has slipped to 47%.

Shifting tax burden

Senator Kerry took a day off from campaigning to prepare for the debate in New Mexico, appearing in public only to take a bicycle ride.

He responded to Mr Bush's attacks by saying that the president was trying to run from his own record on domestic issues.

Mr Kerry and the Democrats have been touting their healthcare plans, and pointing to the fact that millions of Americans have lost their health insurance in the last four years.

Without health insurance, many Americans simply cannot afford healthcare.

Senator Kerry has also attacked the president for shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class.

Some Democrats say the new themes are meant to appeal to voters who supported Reform Party candidate Ralph Nader four years ago.

But both sides know the stakes are high in this final debate, and will come out of the head-to-head knowing they now have to campaign aggressively until election day.