Cincinnati, May 05: President George W Bush's campaign road show rolled through the crucial battleground state of Ohio, where he attacked Democratic challenger John Kerry and promised better days were ahead for the state's struggling economy. ''The economy is strong, and it's getting better,'' he said yesterday on the last day of a two-day bus tour to Michigan and Ohio that kicked off the active part of his campaign for re-election in November.

For a second consecutive day Bush aggressively attacked Kerry as a flip-flopping elitist who could not be trusted, saying the Massachusetts senator wanted to raise taxes on everyday Americans. One day after chiding Kerry for claiming a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle belonged to his family, not him, Bush ridiculed Kerry for claiming foreign leaders supported him but refusing to name them.

He noted Kerry had said last month that he could have met some of those foreign leaders in a New York city restaurant. The Kerry campaign said Bush was attacking Kerry rather than talking about important issues like saving jobs and bringing stability to Iraq.

Bureau Report