USTIN, Texas - George W. Bush yesterday interrupted preparations for the Republican convention to defend running mate Dick Cheney and attack Democratic rival Al Gore for creating ''political war.''
The Texas governor, who has cleared his schedule to work on the speech he will give in Philadelphia after he is formally nominated next week as the Republican Party's presidential candidate, appeared briefly before reporters to discuss the address and hit back at Cheney's critics.
Bush's choice of the former defense secretary, who helped mastermind the 1991 Gulf War after serving 10 years as Wyoming's congressman in the US House, has prompted criticism from Democrats.
They have portrayed his voting record, from his stand on abortion and gun control to the environment and women's issues, as ultraconservative and called his selection backward-looking.
Bush said the comments were symptomatic of all that is wrong with Washington, and predicted it would not dissuade voters.
''Secretary Cheney brought people together and helped win a war, which stands in stark contrast to Vice President Gore, who tends to divide people to create political war,'' Bush said.
''They're doing their level best to tear people down, but they're not going to succeed,'' he added.
Cheney defended himself in several television appearances yesterday, calling the criticism of his votes ''typical distortion'' by Democrats.
''Obviously, I came from a conservative state and did, in fact, vote that way. But I don't have any apologies to make for that,'' Cheney told CBS.
Regarding his acceptance speech next Thursday, Bush, who has given speeches as short as 10 minutes on the campaign trail, warned that his own would be longer than people were accustomed to - about 30 minutes, excluding applause.
Meanwhile, a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday, after Bush chose Cheney as his running mate, showed Bush leading Gore 50 percent to 39 percent, with Ralph Nader at 4 percent and Pat Buchanan at 1 percent. With just Bush and Gore, Bush led 54-40. In the same poll two weeks earlier, Gore had pulled into a statistical tie.
The new poll questioned 1,035 adults, including 632 likely voters, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Material from the Associated Press and Reuters news service was used in this report.
