-Barre, Pa. ? President Bush said Friday the choice facing voters amounted to who could keep Americans safer from terrorists, and his opponent did not measure up. John Kerry shot back that if he were president, Osama bin Laden would have been killed or captured by now, and Bush let him get away.

“All progress on every other issue depends on the safety of our citizens,” Bush told supporters in a sports arena in Wilkes-Barre, delivering a retooled stump speech that portrays Kerry as naive on terrorism and eager to raise taxes.

But the Democrat gave no quarter on the argument over who’s tougher on terrorism as the rivals traded accusations.

“You want to talk about the war on terror, Mr. President? Let’s talk about it,” Kerry yelled while supporters cheered him on at a Reno, Nev., rally. “Let’s talk about what happened when you let Osama bin Laden escape in Afghanistan.”

Reprising a line of attack from the debates, Kerry accused Bush of holding back the 10th Mountain Division when bin Laden was thought to have been cornered in the caves of Tora Bora in December 2001, instead letting Afghan warlords try to find him. Kerry went beyond that to assert he would have run down the terrorist leader if he were president. “I would have used our military, and we would have gone after and captured or killed Osama bin Laden. That’s tough.”

With just 11 days to the election, Bush campaigned in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, which account for one-fourth of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. Bush won Florida and Ohio in 2000; Pennsylvania is his top goal among Democratic-leaning states.

Kerry was in Wisconsin and Nevada, the first won by Democrat Al Gore in 2000 and the second by Bush.

Polls find the race is close in all of the states where Bush and Kerry campaigned Friday.

Speaking earlier in Milwaukee, Kerry pledged to support working women and their children if elected. He said his combination of plans to raise the minimum wage, improve education and expand health care would help women struggling to care for their families.

The Massachusetts senator told his audience he would reverse financial and educational loses that he said women had suffered under the Republican administration. “No matter how tough it gets, no one in the White House seems to be listening,” Kerry said.

Bush spoke of differences with Kerry over what he called “the bedrock values that are so critical to our families and our future.”

In his most extensive campaign-trail remarks on the subject of abortion, Bush raised Kerry’s votes against laws on parental notification and violence against “unborn victims.”

“Here my opponent and I are miles apart,” Bush said.