WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Polls Friday indicated President Bush had achieved both his most significant lead in recent weeks over his Democratic contender, Sen. John Kerry, but also his lowest approval rating, while Democrats argued their campaign was right on track despite recent changes.
With Gallup giving Bush a double-digit lead in his race to be re-elected president, while according to a Harris poll he received a worst-ever 45-percent approval rating, the president's place in the race remained ambiguous. Democrats, however, declared themselves happy.
"The race fundamentally and structurally has not changed for some time, and we are, I think, very pleased with our position," senior adviser Joe Lockhart said.
"A lot has been said about the Bush lead over the last two weeks, but as we sit here today we're looking at a race that's very tight."
Lockhart was one of several top Democrats who joined the Kerry campaign in recent weeks. "Along with longtime political operatives John Sasso, Michael Whouley and Mike McCurry, the former Clinton administration spokesman was brought on board to strengthen an already impressive campaign team," the campaign said in a statement.
He also came on after weeks of attack ads questioning Kerry's military service during the Vietnam War knocked down the Democrat's polling numbers. Speaking Friday, Lockhart said he would not take a leading role in the campaign.
"There's nothing that changes the structure of this campaign, the message of this campaign," he said. "It's about John Kerry taking it to George Bush every day."
Media reports indicated Lockhart and the campaign's other additions would take over some long-term strategic planning from campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill. Lockhart denied the rumors and joked that he did not know why he had been added to the staff.
"There is an incredibly strong campaign team here," he said. Cahill "took this campaign from 25 points behind before (the) Iowa primary and swept through primary season in an impressive demonstration of leadership. ... And that leadership remains in place."
Campaign officials maintained they had expected to have a rough August, with their convention long finished and Republicans reaping publicity for their own. Bush received what was estimated to be about a 5-percentage-point post-convention bounce in the polls, which Democrats said was exactly what they had expected.
But the Gallup poll released Friday indicated Bush had a significant 13-point lead over Kerry, 55 percent to 42 percent among likely voters who responded to the poll.
The Harris poll's findings were based on telephone interviews conducted Sept. 9-13 with 1,018 U.S. adults, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The Gallup survey was conducted Sept. 13-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points, 4 points in subsamples of registered and likely voters.
The Gallup results were, as Democrats pointed out Friday, outside most other polling results, which had showed Bush's post-convention lead dissipating. But they also pointed to the most significant lead for either candidate in what has remained a virtual tie since Kerry emerged as the Democratic nominee.
Perhaps in response, the campaign and its surrogates have begun engaging Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in a character debate.
A bundle of events Friday were engineered to bring to the forefront questions about Cheney and his connections to the controversial defense contracting company Halliburton.
Cheney served as chief executive officer of Halliburton until he was inaugurated but has said he has not been connected to the company in the past three years.
Halliburton has come under scrutiny for receiving millions of dollars in no-bid contracts during the war in Iraq, which the Kerry campaign has said were part of an insider deal through Cheney.
Kerry said it pointed to an administration more concerned with special interests than with average people in the United States.
"We need a commander in chief and a vice president who put the interests of our troops and our taxpayers ahead of their big-money friends," Kerry said in remarks for delivery at an event Friday in Albuquerque.
"We need a president and a vice president who won't sacrifice the taxpayers' money on the altar of no-bid cronyism while our fighting men and women go without the armor and equipment they need."
The campaign further hammered on the issue with a 30-second ad launched Friday in Oregon and other battleground states that called out Cheney's statement he had "no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind."
"The truth," the ad states in part, "As vice president, Dick Cheney received $2 million from Halliburton. Halliburton got billions in no-bid contracts in Iraq. Dick Cheney got $2 million. What did we get?"
America Coming Together, a third-party political action committee with strong ties to the Democratic Party, also issued a statement on Halliburton. ACT is a 527 organization, so called because of its designation with the Internal Revenue Service, and as such is not allowed to directly coordinate either with Kerry's campaign or with the Democratic National Committee.
However, its statement Friday, titled "Cheney and Halliburton: Funding terrorists & evading U.S. law," carried the campaign's arguments forward. "Cheney ADMITTED doing business with Iran & Libya; LIED about Iraq work," the statement said.
Strategist Tad Devine said that the issue resonated with voters and highlighted the administration's focus on special interests ahead of the American middle class.
"We welcome a discussion of Halliburton," he said.
The Bush administration "has stood against the American people, and that's the debate we're going to win."
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