"President Bush is the right man at the right place at the right time," he added.
Florida is a bit of a mystery to pollsters, in part because voter turnout might be depressed in areas hit by the swarm of hurricanes that struck the state in August and September. But a series of new surveys has shown that the race appears to be a tossup. Some show a tie and others give Bush a slight edge.
A recent Washington Post poll conducted with the Spanish-language network Univision showed the two tied among likely voters, 48% to 48%.
Like other recent surveys, the poll showed Bush leading among Latinos, but with less support than he enjoyed in 2000. Kerry has made gains among Cuban Americans, traditionally Republicans, amid criticism of the administration's Cuba policies.
The Bush campaign's polling shows that the president has a slight edge over Kerry in the state, but campaign officials said they thought the race would be decided by which side did the best job of turning out its supporters.
Rove conceded that the campaign was concerned that supporters of the president whose lives were disrupted during the recent hurricanes may not make it to the polls. "All four hurricanes made landfall in Republican counties," he said.
The latest sign of the White House's concern for its Latino base in Florida came Friday, when the campaign abruptly announced that Al Cardenas, a Cuban-born former state Republican Party chairman, would be a new co-chairman for Florida.
The president's rhetoric was sharp Saturday, as he continued to challenge his opponent's competence for the presidency.
In each speech, Bush noted that today was the one-year anniversary of Kerry's vote against an $87-billion funding bill for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Deriding Kerry for his comment this year that he had voted for the bill before opposing it, Bush said: "It's a case study into why his contradictions call into question his credibility and his ability to lead our nation."
Kerry has noted that the version of the bill he supported was a Democratic alternative that would have rolled back some of Bush's tax cuts to provide the $87 billion.
Earlier Saturday, Bush used his radio address to boast that the U.S. economy had grown the fastest of any industrial nation's over the last three years. He said Kerry would raise taxes, weaken the No Child Left Behind Act and oppose healthcare reforms.
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Times staff writer Nick Anderson in Washington contributed to this report.
