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In his autobiography, Barack Obama recounts one of his first lessons in Chicago politics, received while getting a haircut in Hyde Park, just days after arriving here to become a community organizer.

Hope tells David Boies that his phone won't be ringing on Wednesday, Nov. 3. Experience tells him that it probably will. The master litigator who represented then-Vice President Al Gore in his Supreme Court challenge in the 2000 campaign, Boies sees eerie similarities in the closeness of this presidential campaign.

Once thought a swing state that could tip the balance in national political campaigns, Illinois now appears cemented firmly in the Democratic camp, with the party's candidates for president and U.S. Senate holding solid leads heading into Election Day, a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll shows.

President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have done their jobs. Now, here in one of the most targeted cities in this battleground state, the burden rests on Nancy Penn and Marion Geronime to do theirs. It is no exaggeration to suggest their performance may well determine the next American president.

Rep. John Lewis is not a timid man. As a young civil rights activist, he was jailed and beaten numerous times, at one point helping lead 600 marchers out of Selma, Ala., and into an ocean of club-wielding state troopers at the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge. He was beaten severely, his skull fractured, as tear gas erupted all around. "I thought I saw death," Lewis said recently, eyeing a grainy photo of the March 1965 event.

My father was ahead of his time. He theorized that if enough people had racially mixed children, racism would eventually disappear.

President Bush made image-packed stops Saturday in Florida, where he accused Sen. John Kerry of "election amnesia" over his stand on Iraq, while the Democrat told supporters in Colorado that Bush was trying to motivate voters through fear.

Undecided voters in the battleground state of Florida are unlikely to be swayed by the program aired Friday evening by Sinclair Broadcasting Group that keys on Sen. John Kerry and his Vietnam War record, according to many who viewed the broadcast.

A recent mailer papering her district shows Democratic state Rep. Careen Gordon against the Chicago skyline, side-by-side with pictures of three of the city's most powerful politicians.

Running unopposed for a seat in the South Side's 6th House District, freshman legislator Patricia Bailey won't face a tough fight for re-election Nov. 2.

Making a direct appeal to female voters, Sen. John Kerry promised Friday to protect their economic interests, while President Bush told voters in Pennsylvania that the race boils down to who can keep American families safer from terrorists.

Hoping to influence how courts deal with the controversial issue of medical malpractice, heavyweight special interest groups are pouring so much money into the race for the southern Illinois seat on the state Supreme Court that it has become the most expensive in Illinois court history.

Restrictions against what may total tens of thousands of so-called provisional ballots in Michigan and Ohio are being challenged in federal court just days before the election.

Here's what puts the "battle" in the battleground of Ohio.

President Bush and Sen. John Kerry revived their debate over domestic issues on Thursday, with the incumbent proposing expanded personal accounts for health care while the challenger called for a greater investment in science and technology.

One way to bring health-care costs down, according to President Bush, is to improve the technology within the nation's medical system, such as using computerization to eliminate the reliance on handwritten documents.

Battling a critical baseball playoff game as much as themselves, U.S. Senate candidates Barack Obama and Alan Keyes on Thursday attacked each other's notion of morality, Christianity and even the purity of their African-American racial heritages in a televised debate.

Arriving at a DuPage County political forum on a gray, chilly day in January, Barack Obama stepped from a jet black SUV and surveyed the dozen-person entourage engulfing wealthy securities trader Blair Hull, a foe in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

In a McHenry County legislative race tinged with controversy, Rep. Jack Franks is fighting for a fourth term against Republican Perry Moy in the Nov. 2 election.

The head of the Kane County Republican Organization said he cannot foresee the GOP's ironclad grip on countywide offices being loosened in the Nov. 2 election.

With state aid lagging and reserve funds running low, a number of south suburban school districts are appealing to voters to approve tax rate hikes in the Nov. 2 election.

Disabled voters will have specially designated parking spots outside every polling place in Chicago on Election Day, Nov. 2, officials announced Thursday.

Three candidates are vying for the seat from the southeastern corner of the county, left vacant by Republican Rosemary Kurtz, who is retiring. The district covers Grafton Township, most of Algonquin Township and a chunk of Nunda Township.

Incumbent Mark Beaubien Jr., a Republican, is seeking his fifth term in a race against Democrat Larry Feigen. The district lies mostly in Lake County but juts into portions of Algonquin, Nunda, Dorr and McHenry Townships.

As Deerfield voters decide whether they favor spending $25 million for a new library, supporters fear that high-profile architect Frank Gehry's interest in the project has done as much harm as good to the campaign.

With just 12 days until Election Day, the political fallout from criminal charges against former Chicago official Donald Tomczak reverberated 40 miles outside the city in Will County, where Tomczak's son Jeff is running for re-election as state's attorney.

As the campaign for president becomes increasingly vitriolic, Sen. John Kerry and President Bush visited north-central Iowa on Wednesday, with each portraying the other as incompetent to lead the war against terrorism.

Nick Senella, a 46-year-old insurance agent from this hilly patch of southwestern Pennsylvania, can't talk politics at the Sunday supper table anymore.

The flu vaccine shortage took on increasing life as a campaign issue Wednesday as Sen. John Kerry's supporters and other Democrats pressed their charges that missteps by President Bush have exacerbated the problem.

Sen. John Kerry's campaign officials demanded Wednesday that President Bush respond to an assertion by Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, that Bush told him before the war that there would be no casualties in Iraq.

The Illinois Republican Party this week sent out hundreds of thousands of campaign mailers to homes across the state that leave off the name of one high-profile Republican contender--U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes.

One basic rule for political office seekers is to avoid talking down to audiences they are trying to woo. But there's nothing orthodox about the candidacy of Republican Alan Keyes, who is running for U.S. Senate with fervor and certitude, convinced of his ability to divine truths that many in power do not see. Take, for example, Keyes' appearance at a recent luncheon of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a group of prominent business leaders.

On a cool fall evening, a young man in jeans and a gray sweater walked down a residential street here onto lit porches, knocked on doors and waited.

With campaign signs sprouting like dandelions in front yards and candidate forums airing almost every week, the race for state representative in the 43rd District is shaping up as the most contentious legislative campaign in the northwest suburbs.

Christine Cegelis, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress in the 6th District, expressed outrage Wednesday at the DuPage County Election Commission for putting her name in the wrong place in a voters guide that was sent out for inclusion in dozens of local newspapers.

This year's race between Will County State's Atty. Jeff Tomczak and his predecessor, James Glasgow, was bound to get ugly, given the personal accusations and bad blood of their election battle four years ago.

In what could be one of the state's most expensive General Assembly races, Republican Rep. Elizabeth Coulson of Glenview is fighting for her political life against a well-funded opponent on the independent-minded North Shore.

Democrat Daniel Lipinski has raised $74,400 for his 3rd District congressional bid since declaring his candidacy in mid-August, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Social Security recipients will see their monthly paychecks increase by 2.7 percent next year, the government said Tuesday in an announcement that fueled debate about the future of the popular retirement program.

Europe would line up behind a Kerry administration's fresh approach to "winning the peace" in Iraq with diplomatic support, but not troops, say officials and policy analysts.

Even as President Bush assailed Sen. John Kerry's campaign for resorting to "old-style scare tactics" in warning of Social Security benefit cuts and a military draft, Vice President Dick Cheney questioned Tuesday whether Kerry could deal with the threat of terrorists using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the nation's biggest cities.

Saying "a president has to be able to do more than one thing at the same time," Sen. John Kerry vowed Tuesday to protect Social Security and hunt down terrorists wherever they are.

For all the clamor about the contested vote in Florida electing President Bush in 2000, one could just as easily say he owes his presidency to West Virginia.

The Roman Catholic Church's official news service quoted an unnamed Vatican official on Tuesday saying that Sen. John Kerry is "not a heretic" for his stance on abortion rights.

Determined to vote in the primary elections earlier this year, Darrell Price said he had to climb out of his wheelchair and crawl down a flight of steps to his polling place in a residential building on the Near South Side.

U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, who has held onto his 6th District seat in the western suburbs for three decades, and his Democratic opponent Christine Cegelis squared off Tuesday in their only debate, a respectful discussion that contrasted his experience and influence with what she called a "brighter direction."

Kane County Democrats have nothing to lose and much to gain in the Nov. 2 County Board election.

Nothing so far seems to have persuaded Jordan Reilly to vote on Election Day.

From the ramshackle teashops of Kabul to the smart salons of Paris' Left Bank, the contest between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry has become the topic of an intense global conversation. Informed by the Internet and satellite television, taxi drivers in Havana and dot-com entrepreneurs in New Delhi are as knowledgeable--and passionate--about the issues as voters in Ohio and Florida.

Al Gore on Monday accused President Bush of deceiving the public about the reasons for invading Iraq and said he is so ideologically driven that he refuses to admit--or even learn from--his mistakes.

President Bush on Monday delivered a withering rebuke of John Kerry's ability to lead the war against terrorism, contending the Democrat fostered an attitude of "retreat" and "defeatism" that would make the country less safe. Kerry aides fired back that Bush was voicing the "desperate rants" of a "dishonest president."

On the first day of early voting in this critical battleground state, Sen. John Kerry took a scattershot approach to winning votes Monday, promising to protect the state of Israel and condemning President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq.

The heat of this intense political season crossed over to CNN's "Crossfire" Friday and continued to make a stir on the Web Monday after Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," blasted the CNN program in a guest appearance.

Federal investigations swirling around Will County have not produced criminal charges or the arrests of any local officials.

Barred from driving for a year because of a drunken-driving conviction, state Rep. Edwin Sullivan Jr. (R-Mundelein) often hits the campaign trail these crisp fall days astride his mountain bike.

Hundreds of absentee ballots from voters registered in Chicago but living abroad or serving in the military that would not have been counted in past years will be tallied in the Nov. 2 general election, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners announced Monday.

From one battleground state to the next, Sen. John Kerry is not just asking for people's votes. He's telling them what to do--wagging his finger and insisting that they talk to their friends, bring neighbors to the polls, all in the hope of building a grass-roots army that will carry him to victory.

As advocacy groups spend record sums to influence the presidential race, Kelley Garry-Marschall and those on her block have formed what is the equivalent of a neighborhood lemonade stand to do battle in this year's political advertising wars.

John Kerry assailed President Bush on Sunday for reportedly using the word "privatizing" to describe an ambitious plan that Kerry said risks Social Security benefits for retirees, while Republican campaign aides denied the president said it and blasted the Democrat for having no plan to shore up the nation's retirement system.

President Bush has received an "F" rating from the Sierra Club, and the comparatively conservative National Parks Conservation Association has declared his administration an official threat to the parks. Other groups have declared Bush the worst president regarding the environment in recent history.

Campaigning in the nation's first U.S. Senate race between major-party African-American candidates, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Alan Keyes present widely different approaches to civil rights and minority empowerment.

With only two weeks until Election Day, the campaigns of U.S. Rep. Phil Crane (R-Ill.) and Democratic challenger Melissa Bean are digging in and lashing out, freely slamming each other in a race that has become one of the state's most competitive.

One by one, Americans typically settle on a presidential candidate after weighing his, and his rival's, views on the mosaic of issues that each of us finds important.

President Bush and Sen. John Kerry used bus tours Saturday to campaign through two intensely contested states--Florida and Ohio--as each candidate attacked the credibility and leadership abilities of his opponent.

If John Kerry were tempted to feel a smug swell of overconfidence as he enters the final two weeks of his duel with President Bush, it might do him well to pull up a stool at the counter of the Cedar River Family Restaurant.

Until this year, Ken Kopecki and his family were solidly middle class. Now their savings are gone, the family budget is wrecked and Kopecki struggles with financial anxiety day in and out.

New insurance products known as health savings accounts are a crucial part of President Bush's health-care plan. These tax-free accounts are available for the first time this year under a new law.

Before the start of the school day at Maine South High School, Don McArthur-Self, a history teacher and long-shot write-in candidate for U.S. Senate, consults with his campaign's webmaster, who is also a student in his advanced placement U.S. history class.

Jobs and the economy took center stage in a dispute between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry Friday as each candidate argued that he would be a better steward for America.

For a second day Friday, Sen. John Kerry received criticism from Republicans for mentioning in Wednesday's debate that Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian.

With little more than two weeks to go before the Nov. 2 election, officials in Oregon and Nevada have opened criminal investigations into whether canvassers working for a Republican political operative threw out Democratic voter registrations.

Though Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes is lagging far behind Democratic foe Barack Obama in public opinion polls, Keyes appears to have the cash to mount an aggressive media drive before Election Day, campaign finance reports show.

The fluorescent lights at the Video Castle will flicker out for the last time Friday night, ending the 16-year run for the family-owned movie rental store on Main Street and dimming the retirement dreams of Roger and Pat Cathey.

A cactus no bigger than two fingers pushed Wvaldo Armenta, 47, toward his electoral destiny two weeks ago, when he registered to vote for the first time since becoming a U.S. citizen in 2001.

On a day when he should have been basking in a post-debate glow, Sen. John Kerry was defending himself Thursday for mentioning that the vice president's daughter is a lesbian.

In a sign of the ever-expanding political influence of Democrat Barack Obama and the weakening position of veteran U.S. Rep. Philip Crane, Obama is dispatching a bulk of his volunteer army for his U.S. Senate campaign to the northwest suburbs this weekend to work toward Crane's defeat.

La Grange Park mom Krista Grimm never fancied herself a political animal.

Voters in Kane County will have a rare opportunity when they go to the polls Nov. 2: a choice of two candidates for County Board chairman.

Kathy Valente knows candidates are courting voters with weighty issues such as Iraq and health care.

In their final face-to-face confrontation Wednesday night, Sen. John Kerry cast blistering doubt over President Bush's stewardship of health care, employment and the Iraq war, while Bush sought to disparage his rival as an unaccomplished tax-and-spend liberal who would make the country unsafe and the economy bleaker.

The presidential race in many ways can now be reduced to this: a contest between the lovers and the haters.

ON ECONOMIC SECURITY

President Bush and Sen. John Kerry resorted to plenty of half-truths and exaggerations in Wednesday's debate in Tempe, Ariz., as they discussed jobs, taxes, health care, education and other domestic issues.

Photographs showing a bulge in the back of the president's suit coat the night of the first debate gave rise to rumors on the Internet that Bush was wearing an earpiece--which the White House and campaign have categorically denied.

C. Stanley Austin, a DuPage judge for the last 12 years who lost his March bid to keep the seat, has been named an associate judge to replace the man who defeated him in the Republican primary.

Sen. John Kerry has improved his standing over President Bush in four Midwestern battleground states where domestic concerns of health care and the economy have overtaken the issues of terrorism and Iraq, a new Chicago Tribune poll shows.

Heading into their final debate on Wednesday night in Tempe, Ariz., President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are honing their closing arguments and aiming for voters living in about 10 battleground states.

The loud voices from the hair salon in West Philadelphia poured into the street. Young black men and women were talking about politics, in particular whether Sen. John Kerry or President Bush could best lead the nation.

Kathi Ovnic Baker is a 54-year-old married working mother of three living in Atlanta. Politically, she considers herself an independent, and has voted in every election as far back as she can remember.

One of the president's twin daughters, Jenna Bush, is stepping up her campaigning for her father.

Driving around Chicago's blighted Altgeld Gardens housing development, LaVida Davis easily spotted two of her orange T-shirt-clad, clipboard-carrying voter registration workers. She turned into a driveway, and came to an immediate halt to avoid a rubber ball.

Estela Gonzalez isn't a U.S. citizen. She will not be able to vote on Nov. 2, but Gonzalez, 44, spends her spare time talking to other Latinas about going to the polls.

This story contains corrected material, published Oct. 13, 2004.

In a race marked by sideshows, U.S. Senate candidates Barack Obama and Alan Keyes faced off in their first debate Tuesday, a surprisingly cordial, policy-oriented discussion that ranged from the war in Iraq to the condition of Illinois' infrastructure.

The Tribune begins its endorsements today in contested elections for the Illinois House. The election is Nov. 2.

Sue Bechtel is Sen. John Kerry's kind of woman. The problem is, President Bush wants her, too.

President Bush, waging a broad assault against Sen. John Kerry in two Western states crucial to success in November, ridiculed his Democratic rival Monday for comparing terrorism to "a nuisance" such as gambling and prostitution.

In an emotional tribute to Christopher Reeve, Sen. John Kerry on Monday recalled the late actor's love of the environment and passion for stem cell research, two issues playing a role in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and 15 other Democratic senators complained Monday to the Federal Communications Commission that a program to be shown on the Sinclair Broadcasting Group's local television stations is a "blatantly partisan attack" against Sen. John Kerry.

If history is any judge, elections should be no sweat for the five incumbent Republicans on the DuPage County Board ballot--or for any other local GOP politicians.

Ryan Chlada, who is running for a 3rd District congressional seat, doesn't seem concerned about matters that typically worry a candidate in the homestretch of a campaign.

Four Cook County judges are unfit to remain on the bench, the Chicago Bar Association said Monday.

The Tribune concludes its endorsements today in contested races for the U.S. House.

Sgt. Marc Moyette doesn't put much stock in politics. Like many people in his National Guard unit in Baghdad, Moyette is not a voter. But that may change with this year's presidential election--for Moyette, his buddies and many other U.S. troops overseas.

The movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" may be one of the most-watched DVDs among the troops in Iraq. But soldiers and Marines deployed in the country said the principle of keeping politics out of the barracks generally is being upheld, if for no other reason than "everybody is talking only about how to stay alive today," one soldier said.

In dual church visits Sunday, Sen. John Kerry stoked the black vote in advance of Election Day, evoking the civil rights movement and declaring, "We have an unfinished march in this nation, we have an unfinished dream."

Four days for 44 minutes.

The Bush campaign's newest advertisement on national cable television slams Sen. John Kerry, saying he underestimated the threat of terrorism. It quotes Kerry in suggesting that fighting terrorism is more a matter of law enforcement and intelligence-gathering than a military operation.

Against a backdrop of another deadly terrorist attack in the Middle East, the two major candidates running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois both said they would be willing to back military action against Arab nations under certain conditions, but Republican Alan Keyes took the more hawkish stance.

When Republican leaders passed over Rep. Phil Crane for the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee in 2001, it was a clear signal that they didn't trust him with a prominent role in Congress. Crane might have taken the hint--after three decades of modest achievement in the House, it was time to leave. But he didn't.

The local beer is called Senator, but there's a new way of ordering one in the open-air bars of Kenya's lush western hill country.

As President Bush and Sen. John Kerry enter the final three weeks of the 2004 campaign, spirited quarreling has given way to an intensely personal battle as the two men try to shake loose a contest that political strategists believe is fixed in absolute uncertainty.

In a double-barreled debate between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, dueling over the war in Iraq and the economy at home, the latest exchange before an audience of uncommitted voters served to intensify a bitter and close contest.

Some facts and perhaps partial fiction from Friday evening's presidential debate between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry in St. Louis:

WEST ALLIS, Wis.--For the guys in Fire Station House No. 2's sun-splashed day room, Rick Gale was characteristically blunt.

Neighbors first noticed the yard sign supporting John Kerry for president in late August, but their curiosity deepened when it disappeared two weeks later--only to be replaced by a George W. Bush sign.

For 35 years, Ronald Cerotzke and his wife, Joanne, have cast their ballots for U.S. Rep. Phil Crane, but this year the Arlington Heights couple are thinking it's time for a change.

President Bush and Sen. John Kerry attempted to win over an ever-shrinking pool of undecided voters Friday evening, extending their deep disagreements on Iraq to stem cell research, taxes and the face of the Supreme Court, topics often overshadowed by the wartime race.

ON IRAQ AND SADDAM HUSSEIN

Sen. John Kerry could come away from the second presidential debate with a feeling of having held, and perhaps slightly gained, ground on President Bush. The president could come away knowing that he regained footing after a spotty performance in Florida a week ago, and that he was at his best when forcefully stating his views instead of viscerally reacting to his opponent.

From New Mexico to Ohio, and Florida to Pennsylvania, record numbers of new voters have been registered in recent days, especially in urban areas, a trend that could help Democrats on Nov. 2.

Heading into a crucial debate Friday night, President Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq in the face of a government report that contradicted his main reasons for last year's invasion, while Sen. John Kerry said Bush may be leaving him with an Iraq as chaotic as Lebanon in the 1980s.

In a cramped corner of the state Democratic Party headquarters here, David Sullivan and seven other full-time volunteers are frantically dialing lawyers to ask them to monitor Election Day polling places.

Q: During his three-decade career as a talk show host, Phil Donahue popularized the televised town hall format. So what advice does he have for George W. Bush and John Kerry when they walk into the "town hall meeting" Friday at Washington University in St. Louis for their second debate?

In this tranquil central Wisconsin town, the presidential campaign is anything but a sea of tranquility.

Barack Obama's critics often hammer the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate as being too far to the political left for most Illinois voters, using as evidence what they say is a very liberal voting record over the eight years he has represented the Hyde Park neighborhood in the Illinois Senate.

When Mike Kisler's sister committed suicide in 1987, the police officers who broke the news to him and followed up on the investigation were so unsympathetic, he recalls, that they made him feel "more like a suspect than a grieving family member."

Election judges are needed in several townships in suburban Cook County for Nov. 2, Clerk David Orr said Thursday.

With its time-polished pews, soaring Gothic nave and stained-glass splendor, the interdenominational Riverside Church seems like a serene spiritual haven from the bustle of Manhattan beyond its doors.

Fighting to regain an advantage heading into Friday's increasingly crucial debate, President Bush on Wednesday unleashed a sharply honed and bruising assault on Democratic rival John Kerry in states that Bush hopes to claim on Election Day.

Grilled by John Edwards in Tuesday night's debate over alleged improprieties at Halliburton Co., Vice President Dick Cheney calmly dismissed the complaints as a political "smoke screen" and directed viewers to a Web site he said would provide the truth.

In a sharp-elbowed debate over the credibility to lead a country at war, Democrat John Edwards accused the White House on Tuesday of "not being straight" with Americans about Iraq, while Vice President Dick Cheney said presidential candidate John Kerry lacked the "qualities" needed to serve as commander in chief.

In the end, the vice presidential debate Tuesday night wasn't about the candidates sitting on stage. Instead, the encounter between Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards provided a fresh opportunity to carry on their bosses' bitter quarreling.

ON IRAQ

Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards wrestled Thursday evening over Iraq, the economy and taxes in their only one-on-one debate before the election.

Sen. John Kerry demanded Tuesday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledge their mistakes in Iraq after the former administrator of the U.S.-led occupation said more troops were needed at the outset and throughout the conflict to maintain order.

The prime minister of Japan is an Elvis lover.

The battle over John Kerry's Vietnam War record flared up in Chicago on Tuesday, when members of a fledgling group that supports the Democratic presidential nominee confronted one of the authors of an anti-Kerry book at a downtown luncheon.

Like any big event, be it sports or politics, there's always the gamesmanship of trying to psyche the opponent out.

Julia Lowder owns Computer Systems Institute, a small business in Skokie that employs 30 people and trains about 500 students every year in computer skills. When she talks about the upcoming presidential election, Lowder sounds like a Republican, saying she's worried about the economy and calling small businesses "the backbone of our country."

The breakfast offerings at the Machine Shed, a restaurant decked out with antique farm tools, included biscuits and gravy, orange juice served in jam jars, and the war on terrorism.

It's not that Katie Kelley-Eldridge doesn't like Sen. John Kerry. She does. She compulsively follows his speeches on cable television, defends him to Republicans and believes with conviction he should be president.

President Bush returned to Iowa, a state he narrowly lost in 2000, to sign into law on Monday an extension of tax relief for families and businesses that he is making central to his re-election campaign.

Aided by the star power of actor Michael J. Fox, Sen. John Kerry vowed Monday to pursue cures for a panoply of ills through stem cell research, chastising President Bush for his willingness to "sacrifice science for extreme, right-wing ideology."

Sen. John Kerry's actions aboard a Swift boat in Vietnam have been questioned, President Bush has been compared to Adolf Hitler and even Ralph Nader has been accused of being too cozy with Republicans.

The red, white and blue-draped tables outside the Franklin County Board of Elections were buzzing with activity throughout the day and into the evening Monday in Columbus, Ohio.

Voters have until midnight Tuesday to register for the Nov. 2 election, and the voter rolls already have swelled in Chicago and suburban Cook County, officials said Monday.

Educators in this southwestern Ohio town got thrilling news in late 2001: President Bush would sign his landmark school reforms called No Child Left Behind at Hamilton High, chosen from more than 90,000 public schools across America.

Most candidates for president know what they want to talk about on the campaign trail and stick to it with repetitive rigidity.

Walking with a slight swagger to the fanfare of sweeping orchestra music, President Bush stepped from Marine One onto a makeshift stage on the tarmac of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, where he greeted the famed golfer with a smile and a handshake.

This town's usually staunchly Democratic entertainment industry is witnessing what some say is a quiet but steady move toward more conservative Republican policies and candidates.

As candidates for U.S. Senate, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Alan Keyes are polar opposites, and nowhere is that more apparent than on social issues ranging from abortion to prayer in public schools.

With just a month left until Election Day, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are targeting the most hard-fought states in a campaign that has gained a renewed aura of competitiveness since the two debated last week on television.

TIME FOR DEBATE CAMP

Sen. John Kerry accused the Bush administration of engaging in "fiction" while President Bush derided Kerry for thinking that a meeting might bring terrorists to justice as the candidates for president continued debating Friday over how best to make America safe.

More than 62 million people watched the debate Thursday night between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, making the event the most watched presidential debate since 1992.

On Friday, Fox News Channel posted some choice quotes from presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry on its Web site: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" Kerry asked supporters in Tampa. "What a good debate!"'

President Bush and Sen. John Kerry on Thursday night presented sharply conflicting views of the invasion of Iraq and its chaotic aftermath, with Kerry accusing Bush of making a "colossal error in judgment" and Bush declaring that his firm, resolved leadership was critical to protecting America's security.

Whether Sen. John Kerry won the debate with President Bush Thursday night is an open question that voters will decide, but he almost certainly won a chance for a second look.

ON IRAQ

There were biting rhetorical jabs, a few flashes of spontaneity and plenty of frowns between the two lecterns.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing inside the University of Miami's Convocation Center in Coral Gables, Fla., on Thursday was the chill in the air. Whatever the industry thermostat standard, the result was a nippy breeze. Students in short-sleeved shirts rubbed their arms and bounced their knees to keep warm.