Women at the Bush table

Reuters
By Andrew Stern

BLUE BELL, Pa. - Barbara and Laura Bush, the mother and wife of Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, wound up a women-courting campaign swing through two key states on Thursday saying the Texas governor was winning female voters.

The 75-year-old former first lady criticized her son's rival directly at a rally in this posh suburb outside Philadelphia, charging that Democrat Al Gore was trying to frighten older voters.

"Al Gore is exaggerating again, this time on Social Security. He's scaring old people, like me," she told 1,000 Bush supporters at Montgomery County Community College.

The two-day barnstorming bus trip in Michigan and Pennsylvania, dubbed the "W Stands for Women" tour, featured the two Bush women, along with Bush's running mate Dick Cheney's wife Lynne and Condoleezza Rice, the candidate's top foreign policy adviser.

With what may be the closest presidential election in a generation looming in less than three weeks, the tour was aimed at further eroding the advantage Gore is believed to hold among women voters. The latest Reuters/MSNBC tracking poll, released on Thursday, Bush leading Gore 44 percent to 43 percent.

It also found Gore leading among women, 45 percent to 42 percent, while Bush had a 46 to 42 percent lead among men. On Oct. 7, by comparison, Bush led among men, 44-38 percent and Gore among women, 51-38 percent.

Pollster John Zogby said that in general "on the strength of Bush's gain among parents and married voters, he has narrowed the gender gap dramatically."

Barbara and Laura Bush repeatedly answered questions about whether the women's tour reflected concerns in the Bush camp that the Texas governor was still doing poorly with the female vote.

"I think he's picking up the women's vote. We just wanted to band together because we know him," Laura Bush said. "Women want to know and be assured they will be at the table in a Bush administration."

NO NO