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Monday, Aug. 30, 2004

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  "You cannot show weakness in this world today because the enemy will exploit that weakness," he said. "It will embolden them and make the world a more dangerous place."

When asked "Can we win?" the war on terror, Bush said, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the - those who use terror as a tool are - less acceptable in parts of the world."

Bush planned to campaign Monday in New Hampshire, which has voted for only four Democrat presidential nominees in the past 100 years but is up for grabs in November. It's his eighth trip to the state as president.

Four years ago, Bush won New Hampshire by 7,211 votes, or just a little more than 1 percentage point. Though Republicans outnumber Democrats among the state's registered voters, more than a third of those registered are independent.

Bush was stumping with conservative Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who also will be a speaker at the GOP convention.

Bush planned to hold an "Ask President Bush" event at a high school in Nashua, N.H. Later in the day, he was flying to a campaign rally at Heritage Park in Taylor, Mich.

Jennifer Donahue, an adviser at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, said Bush appeared to have the edge because New Hampshire's economy was improving and many of the newcomers to the state were people who had sought refuge from Democrat president candidate John Kerry's home state of Massachusetts because of high taxes and housing prices.

But Donahue said the state also had a significant number of military reservists, and Bush might be hurt by the large number of them, 57 percent, who have been called up since Sept. 11, 2001.

"I believe the election is a referendum on Bush," Donahue said. "Kerry can affect certainly how many of the fence-sitters go into his camp, but I think in large part this is basically a report card on Bush's first four years."

In voter registration, Republicans account for 34 percent of New Hampshire's 714,119 registered voters, while 28 percent are Democrats and 38 percent are undeclared.

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