USTIN, Texas - George W. Bush labored at his Texas ranch and Al Gore returned to Florida's Gulf Coast yesterday as the Democratic and Republican presidential contenders began preparing for their second debate.
In their place, a bevy of surrogates took to the airwaves and phone lines, agreeing only that the race is close with just a month to go before Election Day.
Gore's running mate, Joseph I. Lieberman, attacked his counterpart, Republican vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney, for Cheney's comments about exaggerations by Gore.
The Democratic senator from Connecticut said on CNN's ''Late Edition,'' ''I was in this debate with Dick Cheney on Thursday night, a good civilized debate. We talked about the issues, which is what the campaign is all about. And then Friday morning, Dick Cheney, shockingly to me, went back on the attack with the most vicious comments.''
On Friday Cheney had said, referring to misstatements by Gore, ''when somebody embellishes their resume in a job interview, you don't hire them.''
Lieberman said Cheney made the comment because ''the Bush-Cheney ticket is not doing as well as it thought it would at this point, and particularly because they have concluded that the American people agree more with Al Gore and me on the issues that are important to America's future: education, health care, Social Security, Medicare.''
Appearing later on the same program, Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, said that the Republican ticket is not trailing.
He was bouyed by two new polls. The latest CNN/USA Today Gallup daily tracking poll showed Bush leading Gore, 49 to 41 percent, while a Reuters/MSNBC survey showed the race in a statistical dead heat, with Gore leading Bush 44 percent to 42 percent, down from a 6-percentage-point gap last week. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
''What's interesting about this map is that we're competing in states that Republicans have not won in recent years,'' Rove said. He said the campaign was doing well in five states carried by the former Massachusetts governor, Michael Dukakis, a Democrat, in his unsuccessful run for president.
''We feel very good about the state of the campaign now, and we've got tremendous momentum the last week.''
The talk-show squabbles precede the second formal debate between the two presidential nominees.
Bush and Gore will meet Wednesday at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. The debate will be similar to Thursday's face-off between Cheney and Lieberman, who sat next to each other across from a moderator.
Bush excelled in such settings during the primaries, and his campaign tried unsuccessfully to force the same format for all three debates. The campaigns ended up agreeing to have the first be a traditional debate, with the candidates standing behind podiums.
The final meeting, on Oct. 17 at Washington University in St. Louis, will use a town hall format, with citizen questioners.
As he did for the first debate, Bush repaired to his ranch in central Texas with his advisers and Gore stand-in, US Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
Gore also followed his previous pattern, flying back to a coastal resort on Longboat Key to prepare. Before leaving, he met at the vice president's residence in Washington with a new group of 13 educators.
''This week I'm going to be making the topic of education and how we can make dramatic improvements in our schools the top priority,'' the vice president told reporters.
As the campaign enters its final weeks, the Gore camp is planning to attack Bush's record as governor of Texas. In the next weeks, the candidate and his supporters will point out the Texas governor's ''failed leadership'' on health care, the environment and enforcement of gun permit laws, said Gore's spokesman, Chris Lehane.
''It's our belief that the governor's record in Texas is a window to his priorities,'' Lehane told reporters aboard Air Force Two en route to Florida.
Lieberman will head to Texas later this week to highlight what the campaign sees as flaws in Bush's record, and the Democratic National Committee will be running ads criticizing Bush's record, Lehane said.
Lehane said the effort would not constitute negative campaigning because voters should be informed of Bush's record.
The criticism on gun permit enforcement is a tricky tactic. The Gore campaign's charge that Texas, under Bush, has not prevented mentally ill people and criminals from carrying guns, is likely to resonate with some female voters, but it may not play well in Florida, where there is little support for gun control.
The vice president also planned a conference call with a group of 13 citizen advisers who assisted him last week.
In a conference call with reporters, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer repeatedly said ''the wind is at our back,'' as the campaign enters the final month.
He conceded that Florida, once viewed as firm Republican territory in part because it is led by Bush's brother, Governor Jeb Bush, is a battleground. Fleischer sought to undercut expectations, saying, ''What I find fascinating is that Florida is a lot less reliably Republican than it was in the 1980s.'' To bolster his case, he cited Jeb Bush's loss in his first bid for governor in 1994, when a strong GOP tide swept Republicans into control of both the House and Senate.
After saying that Bush is ahead in Tennessee, Fleischer added, ''when you look at the map, we're able to pick each other's pockets,'' though he said the Bush campaign is doing so ''wider and deeper.'' Yet Florida, where Gore has led in some polls, has 25 electoral votes, behind California, New York, and Texas.
In another jab at Gore, Bush will stop in Bristol, Tenn., tomorrow en route to North Carolina to try to expand his lead there. Fleischer said that this week, Bush will visit six cities in four states that account for 66 electoral votes.
Susan Milligan of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
