"I believe seniors deserve better than a plan that leaves out millions of middle-class seniors, varies in coverage from state to state and could run seniors through welfare offices," the Democratic presidential candidate said in this hotly contested state with a motherlode of elderly voters.

The accusation drew protests from Bush's campaign, though GOP aides did not deny that states could require seniors to go to welfare offices under Bush's plan. Gore's charge, based on self-serving assumptions his staff has made about Bush's plan, caused independent analysts to question whether the vice president was playing racial and class warfare politics to court elderly voters, as well as suburban whites.

"He's trying to turn voters against Governor Bush by scaring seniors," said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The hyperbole-filled exchange opened a critical week of campaigning in which Gore will focus on Medicare while Bush highlights what he calls `an education recession" in America. National polls show the race is a dead heat, with Republican intensity on the rise and Bush regaining his footing.

In the all-important race for 270 electoral votes, Gore is faring well in states that Bush had hoped to sew up by now, including Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Arizona and Colorado. Bush is still doing better than expected in Democratic-leaning Oregon, Washington state and Wisconsin.

The vice president will begin airing ads in Nevada on Tuesday. Democrats are polling in Arizona to determine whether their nominee should begin competing there, according to a senior Gore adviser.

After the first head-to-head debate next week, Democrats will poll voters in North Carolina, Georgia and Colorado to gauge whether to dramatically expand the vice president's target list, the adviser said.

Bush probably can't get to 270 electoral votes without Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor. Despite spending $5 million in TV ads since the conventions, Bush is mired in a tie with Gore in most polls.

Appealing to voters here, Gore called good health "a basic right" and pledged to increase penalties on HMOs that exclude seniors. He said he would protect and expand Medicare.

"I will veto the use of any money from Medicare, for anything other than Medicare," said Gore, though it could be argued that his own plan doesn't meet that standard.

Gore promises to extend Medicare's solvency by five years, from 2025 to 2030, by using the anticipated $400 billion, 10-year Medicare surplus to reduce the federal debt. He says that would save $75 billion in interest payments, which would be used to shore up Medicare.

The vice president says he would spend $338 billion over 10 years to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. Bush's $198 billion Medicare plan would give states $48 billion to provide prescription drug coverage while he implements a market-based approach on the national level.

Gore told reporters aboard Air Force II that 14 states already offer prescription drug plans and four of them -- Connecticut, Delaware, Maine and Minnesota -- require seniors to sign up for the program at welfare offices. Bush's plan "could mean" the same for seniors nationwide, he said.

His language was less absolute than Sunday, when Gore left no room for doubt by claiming that Bush's plan "would force" seniors into welfare offices. Aides said he stands behind Sunday's characterization.

The vice president said he wasn't practicing racial or class warfare. Instead, he said that, unlike welfare, Medicare "gives seniors a sense of dignity in receiving benefits without regard to income levels or employment status."

Fleischer said Bush's plan is modeled after a Pennsylvania program that does not involve welfare offices. Though states would not be required to follow the Pennsylvania example, the spokesman said, "That doesn't mean Bush requires people to go to welfare offices."

Gore's attack resembles the approach he took in the Democratic primaries against rival Bill Bradley, whose universal health care plan was picked apart by the vice president. Bradley said Gore stretched the truth to make his case.

David Bositis, an expert on racial politics with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, said Gore appears to be playing on the pride of middle-class Americans "who would find it insulting to go to a welfare office."

"You always wonder in terms of welfare issues if there is some racial subtext, but this message seems to be aimed directly at seniors. You'd have to go through some gyrations to assume some racial context here," Bositis said.

Michigan pollster Ed Sarpolus, however said Gore's message touches a hot button among certain suburban Detroit voters who equate welfare with a whole set of racial issues that have divided whites and blacks.

"In lower Macomb County it is certainly a racial issues, but in most places it is economic," Sarpolus said. "Lots of people won't accept welfare, even if they need and deserve it, because of the stigma attached."