Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards on the Campaign Trail

TOM BEARDEN:

The setting for tonight's third and final debate is the Gammage Auditorium on the campus of Arizona State University. The plans were designed originally by Frank Lloyd Wright, as an opera house to be built in Baghdad. But when King Faisal was assassinated in 1958, the project was shelved and the design later adapted for the university. The format will be identical to the first debate in Florida two weeks ago. It will last 90 minutes. The candidates will stand at lecterns and take questions from a single moderator, this time Bob Schieffer of CBS News. However the subject of his questions will be limited to economic and domestic policy. The two campaigns have moved to score points early, each releasing competing television ads on health care policy this week.

AD SPOKESMAN:

John Kerry and liberals in Congress have a health care plan for you. A big-government take over. $1.5 trillion. Rationing. Less access. Fewer choices. Long waits. And washington bureaucrats, not your doctor, make final decisions on your health.

AD SPOKESPERSON:

Wait a minute. That's what we have now under George Bush. It's Bush that let insurance companies overrule your doctor; costs have skyrocketed. The Kerry plan lowers costs, you choose your doctor, you make medical decisions, not the government.

TOM BEARDEN:

At a rally this morning in Medford, Oregon, John Edwards outlined the plans for health care in a Kerry administration.

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS:

Here's what we want to do about health care. First, we want to make the same health care… the same health care plan that's available to members of Congress available to every single American. Second… ( cheers and applause ) …we're going to bring down the cost of health care, which means pooling the catastrophic costs which drive everybody's premiums up, and giving direct help to both employers so that they can provide more health care coverage to their employees, and to families to reduce health care costs up to $1,000 a year. We also want to cover every child in America, and… (applause) …we want to do something about the cost of prescription drugs which are completely out of control.

This vice president hasn't done anything about it except make it worse over and over again they made a choice. They had a choice about whether to allow prescription drugs in from Canada, would have brought down costs for everybody; would have brought down costs for everybody, would have help the American people. There was one hitch. The big drug companies were against it. So they had a choice. They could be with you or the big drug companies. Who did they choose? Oh, yeah. Not only that, when we did the Medicare prescription drug bill, we were negotiating it and debating it before the congress. John Kerry and I were fighting to use the market power, the negotiating power of the government to get better prices, to get discounts for seniors made all the sense in the world. The VA already does it. Well, George Bush had a choice. He could be with you or he could be with the drug companies. Who did he choose?

VOICE:

Drug companies.

TOM BEARDEN:

Meanwhile Vice President Dick Cheney was busy attending three campaign events in Pennsylvania. He talked about the economy at a rally in Saxonburg.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY:

Our country requires strong and consistent leadership for our actions overseas and the same is true for our policies here at home. When President Bush and I stood on the inaugural platform on the west side of the U.S. Capitol and took the oath of office, our economy was sliding into recession. Then terrorists struck on 9/11 and shook our economy once again. We faced a basic decision: To leave more money with families and businesses or take more of American people's hard earned money for the federal government. President Bush made his choice, he proposed and he delivered tax cuts for the American people not once, not twice, but four times. (Applause)

In our second term we'll keep moving forward with a pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda. We'll work to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and to help families and small businesses we'll lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the tax code. (Applause) We will work to end lawsuit abuse. (Applause) We know it's a lot easier for America's businesses to hire new workers if they don't have to keep hiring lawyers. (Laughter) And we will work for medical liability reform because we know the cost of malpractice insurance is creating a crisis not only in Pennsylvania but across the nation. America's doctors should be able to spend time healing patients, not fighting off frivolous lawsuits. (Applause)

TOM BEARDEN:

The polls going into tonight's third and final debate show the race for the White House remains tight. An ABC News/Washington Post poll of likely voters has President Bush with 50 percent and John Kerry with 46 percent. A CBS News poll has the president at 47 percent and Sen. Kerry at 46. While a Reuters/Zogby Poll has the president and the senator deadlocked at 45 percent. A flurry of new polling will begin the moment tonight's debate concludes.