By Sue Pleming, Reuters, 11/04/00

WASHINGTON -- Dashing across battleground states in the final weekend of the presidential campaign, Democrat Al Gore wooed black voters while Republican George W. Bush promised a "fresh start after a season of cynicism."

With just three days until the election, Bush's lead against Gore fell by two percentage points to 46 to 44 in the latest Reuters/MSNBC poll Saturday. With a 3 percent margin of error, the two candidates are in a statistical dead heat.

Separate polls in each of nine key battleground states showed a totally unpredictable election. Bush made a charge in the crucial state of Florida, cutting Gore's lead to a single point, and overtook Gore in Wisconsin. But Gore drew level with Bush in his home state of Tennessee and stretched his small advantage in Washington.

Both candidates campaigned across key swing states in a final sprint before the election, taking swings at each other in the hope of picking up undecided voters.

At rallies in Dearborn, Michigan, and stops in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Bush fired up his supporters and appealed to disaffected Democrats to choose him rather than the "old, tired, stale politics" of his opponent.

"We're in for a tough race. This is going to be a close contest. Here's my message to all the elected officials -- in three short days help is on the way. Three days, help is on the way," he shouted to the crowd in Pittsburgh.

In Dearborn, Bush received the endorsement of a local Teamsters union president, Larry Brennan, which he said would send a "chilling signal" to Gore that working people in the Democratic party supported the Republican ticket.

Bush promised a new brand of leadership in Washington D.C.. "America's ready for a fresh start after a season of cynicism," he said to roars from the crowd.

GORE LOOKS TO BLACK VOTE

Seeking to boost voter turnout and to overtake Bush's slight lead, Gore began the final weekend of the campaign in his home state of Tennessee with a prayer breakfast attended by many blacks, including Martin Luther King III, the son of the slain civil rights leader.

"I believe that on Tuesday morning, very early, before the sun rises, in congregations all across Memphis, you're going to be saying: wake up it's time to take your souls to the polls," Gore told about 1,200 people packed into a hotel in downtown Memphis after a rousing program of gospel music.

With African American turnout considered a key factor in the election, a series of black religious leaders at the breakfast threw their support behind Gore.

"My father often said that a voteless people is a powerless people and that one of the most important steps that we can take is that short step to the ballot box," King, the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, said. "So Tuesday is judgment day."

In West Virginia, a state that has voted Republican only three times in the last 65 years, Gore tried to chip away at Bush's credibility by hammering away at his misstatement suggesting that Social Security was not a federal program.

"It wasn't a slip of the tongue. It was an expression of ingrained hostility," Gore told a rally of several hundred people on the tarmac of Huntington/Tri-State Airport.

GORE ANNOYS BUSH CAMP WITH REMARKS

Gore annoyed the Texas governor's camp with a comment at the Memphis breakfast that they interpreted as a slight.

"I am taught that deep within us we have the capacity for good and for evil," Gore said. "I am taught that good overcomes evil if we choose that outcome. ... I feel it coming. I feel a message here that on Tuesday we will prevail in Tennessee and Memphis will lead the way."

Bush's Communications Director Karen Hughes called the remark "beyond the bounds of reasonable political discourse."

"We don't think the vice president is evil, we just think he's wrong," Hughes said. "The American people are not going to appreciate that kind of comment."

Gore spokesman Chris Lehane said the vice president was elaborating on a point he makes in his stump speech "that every person has the capacity within themselves to reach out to higher principles and the higher good."

"It's not even worth engaging in that discussion because it plays into their games," Lehane added.

Both Gore and Bush steered clear of commenting on the flap surrounding revelations Thursday of Bush's drunk driving arrest 24 years ago.

Surrogates of Bush took up the baton for their candidate at the Dearborn rally, blaming Democratic "desperation tactics" for the story and urged voters to ignore the "sniping."

"As we get down to the end of the campaign, we're seeing the last minute desperation tactics we've seen before from the opposition, time and time again," said Republican vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney. "But, frankly, we're all a little tired of the Clinton-Gore routine. The wheel has turned, it's time for them to go."

After Pennsylvania, Bush was set to travel to Newark, New Jersey, hammering his familiar themes of saving the Social Security retirement system from bankruptcy, reforming the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly and providing $1.3 trillion in tax cuts.

Following his rallies in Memphis and Huntington, Gore moved on to Pittsburgh for a get-out-the-vote event at a black church and a rally with union officials.