Ashwaubenon, Wis. ? Call it Dick Cheney’s doomsday campaign.

In the frantic final days of the campaign of his life, with political attacks on all sides more and more strident, the vice president is pounding harder than ever at Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on national security.

Cheney was criticized in September for saying about this election “if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again, that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.”

While Cheney no longer makes that explicit connection, he routinely — if implicitly — raises apocalyptic scenarios in contemplating a Kerry presidency, doing so always in that subdued boardroom manner of his that often serves to mask the harshness of his message.

“It’s very important that we choose someone who understands the nature of the enemy we face, who understands the depth of the commitment needed in order to defeat it, who understands that we’re far better off taking them on over there than we are fighting them on the streets of our own cities,” Cheney told a group of supporters last week in Michigan.

Absent an ongoing offensive against terrorists such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney said, “terrorists will grow only more determined … and the risk will increase that they’ll get their hands on deadlier weapons than anything we’ve seen yet.”

And at a rally earlier this month in this Green Bay suburb, Cheney accused Kerry of “a record of weakness and a strategy of retreat” on national security.

Kerry spokesman Bill Burton accused Cheney of “trying to scare people into voting for George Bush and Dick Cheney.”

“It’s absolutely irresponsible,” Burton said. “It’s as absurd as someone saying George Bush and Dick Cheney were responsible for 9-11 because they were in the White House. It’s crazy.”

Vice President Dick Cheney continues to emphasize that the GOP is better prepared to handle national security. He spoke Friday at a town meeting-style campaign stop in Nevada, Iowa, with his wife, Lynne.

Kerry has said repeatedly that he would capture and kill terrorists wherever they are found. Even so, Cheney’s attacks seem successful in motivating some voters.

Polls show that while Bush’s overall job-approval ratings are dangerously low for an incumbent seeking re-election, his approval rating is higher for his handling of terrorism.

“I’d be scared to death” of a Kerry presidency, said Linda Durbin, a Bush-Cheney supporter from Toledo who attended a Cheney rally in Sylvania, Ohio. She said she didn’t think Kerry was committed to fighting terrorists.

Cheney issued one of his most dire warnings yet last week, suggesting that if Kerry were elected president, the United States could lose the war on terror.

“The bottom line is, I don’t have any confidence in John Kerry to be the kind of tough, aggressive commander in chief who will aggressively pursue our adversaries overseas, and I think that’s a major failing,” Cheney told supporters Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I don’t think we can win the war on terror unless we aggressively go after our enemies.”

Cheney’s hard-hitting style in the campaign’s final days dovetails with the campaign’s larger strategy. The Bush-Cheney campaign just released a television ad that said if Kerry was elected, the U.S. might be more susceptible to terrorist attack.

Cheney, known to some political opponents as “Darth Vader” for his ominous bearing and perceived overarching influence within the Bush administration, isn’t trying to scare people, aides say.

“We firmly believe Senator Kerry’s policies would not keep Americans as safe as President Bush’s have,” said Anne Womack, Cheney’s campaign spokeswoman. “The vice president is telling Americans the choices they have in this election” on this critical issue, she said.