BECKLEY, W.Va. - Florine Warden eased her Pontiac Grand Prix into a shopping center parking lot, raised a microphone to her mouth and began broadcasting to everyone within earshot of the speakers strapped to her vehicle's roof.

"Hello friends," the 86-year-old miner's widow said cheerfully, goosing the gas pedal as she talked. "Rally out! Protect your benefits, your pensions, your Social Security. You worked for them, now vote for them. Support John Kerry for president for a better world. See you at the polls Nov. 2nd." A few miles up Robert C. Byrd Drive, millworker Mark Stiefer explained why he plans to cross party lines and vote for President George W. Bush.

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"I'm a Democrat, but Bush is my man," said Stiefer, 49, as he checked out of a outdoors supply store. "We've got to have someone with backbone, and he's the only one with backbone."

Warden and Stiefer have not had to look far to form opinions about the men who want to occupy the White House. Their home state of West Virginia has been prime stumping ground for Bush and Kerry, who are locked in a close contest for its five potentially decisive electoral votes.

Both men have even campaigned here in Beckley, the hub of southern West Virginia, about 120 miles from Roanoke. Their July appearances attracted thousands of spectators and a national media swarm unlike anything folks here have seen.

"I don't think there's ever been this much interest in an election here," said Warden, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who has turned the hillside in front of her house into a veritable garden of campaign signs.

It still pains Warden that Bush won West Virginia in 2000, becoming the first nonincumbent Republican to carry the state since Herbert Hoover in 1928.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin, and Democrats control West Virginia's statewide offices and both houses of the legislature. Its senior U.S. senator, 86-year-old Democrat Robert Byrd, is so revered that a Beckley businessman questioned whether God could defeat Byrd in a one-on-one contest.

Despite such Democratic dominance, Bush beat then-Vice President Al Gore by 6 percentage points in 2000. Many pundits attributed the outcome to Gore's positions on environmental regulation, gun control and abortion - none of which played well in this socially conservative state.

"Socially, this is a Republican state," said Robert Rupp, a professor of history and political science at West Virginia Wesleyan College.

Some Democrats believe Gore lost West Virginia - and the election - because he ignored the state during his campaign. They can't accuse Kerry of repeating that mistake.

"Democrats are giving this their best shot," Rupp said.

The Massachusetts senator has made seven appearances in West Virginia since nailing down the Democratic nomination in March. His running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, has made four solo visits since joining the ticket. Kerry will return to the state today for a rally in Huntington.

Bush is fighting fiercely here, as well. The president has been to West Virginia nine times this year, and Vice President Dick Cheney has made two trips, including a Sept. 13 stop in Beckley.

A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in mid-September showed Bush leading Kerry by 6 percentage points (51 percent to 45 percent) among likely voters. Though the candidates have not campaigned here in October, West Virginia still is widely regarded as a battleground on the road to the White House.

"I can't tell you what's going to happen on Nov. 2nd," said Beckley Mayor Emmett Pugh, a Democrat who, two weeks ago, had not made up his own mind about the race.

West Virginia has received far more attention from the candidates than Virginia, a state no Democrat has carried since 1964. Kerry's campaign initially targeted Virginia as a possible pickup, but eventually moved most of its Virginia field staff to more competitive states, including West Virginia.

"I guess this is our 15 minutes of fame," said Pugh, happy for the attention the campaign has brought to Beckley and surrounding Raleigh County.

Kerry and Edwards drew a crowd of 4,500 supporters for a July 9 rally at the Beckley-Raleigh County Memorial Airport. Bush had an equally large audience one week later when he spoke at the Raleigh County Armory Civic Center, becoming the first sitting president to visit Beckley.

The frenzy has galvanized area voters, said Joe Long, the chairman of the Raleigh County Republican Committee.

"It makes you feel a part of everything," Long said. "People are coming in and carrying stuff out of our headquarters every day."

It's a busy election year in West Virginia, where voters also will elect a governor, six other statewide officers and 117 state legislators. The GOP has candidates in all but one of those races. Party officials such as Long hope to loosen the Democrats' grip on the statehouse while securing West Virginia's electoral votes for Bush.

Long, a retired insurance agent, predicted Bush will carry West Virginia again because "his values are our values."

Long cited Bush's staunch opposition to late-term abortions, gun control and gay marriage as issues that resonate with West Virginians. He also hailed Bush as an advocate for the coal industry in West Virginia, which accounts for 13 percent of the nation's coal production.

Bush and Kerry have both declared support of so-called "clean coal" technology, but environmentalists have criticized Bush's administration for easing restrictions on the controversial practice of mountaintop mining.

Warden said Kerry deserves the support of blue-collar workers, particularly those who have had their jobs threatened or eliminated by companies looking for cheaper labor overseas. West Virginia, with an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent in August, has lost an estimated 1,000 jobs since Bush took office.

"Where in the hell are you going to get a job?" Warden said. "They're all going to India and other places. They're not coming here."

In random interviews around Beckley, Kerry supporters raised concerns about jobs, health care and the war in Iraq. Bush supporters felt strongly about abortion, gay marriage and gun rights and praised the president's response to terrorist threats.

"If Kerry wins, we'll all get killed because he'll pull all the troops out of Iraq and we'll get bombed over here," said Brandon Wood, an employee at the Nell Jean Outdoorsman.

The store, a few doors down from local Republican headquarters, stayed busy on a recent Friday as Wood and a co-worker helped customers prepare their bows for the upcoming hunting season. Stiefer, the pro-Bush Democrat, said he wondered whether either candidate considered West Virginians anything more than props for scripted campaign visits.

"Money talks and BS walks and I don't think the common people have a lot to do with it anymore," Stiefer said.

Kerry supporter John Childers said the war in Iraq and limited job opportunities have fueled his desire to dump Bush.

"I have a college education and look what I'm doing," said Childers, 43, a clerk at the Little General gas station and convenience store. "It's gotten sad fast."

Childers said he attended Kerry's July rally in Beckley and came away impressed with the Democrat.

"I think Kerry's got some good ideas," Childers said. "I think he can make it work."

Voters such as Warden could play a decisive role in West Virginia, which has the third-highest proportion of senior citizens in the nation. Warden said she owes her well-being to the United Mine Workers of America, which covers most of her medical expenses.

"With this arthritis, I don't know how I'd get by," the feisty woman said.

Warden said she considers Bush too divisive and predicted that his re-election "will start a civil war in this country."

That's just one reason she thinks nothing of driving around town with her microphone to rally voters. Or standing in a parking lot and waving Kerry signs at motorists whipping through a busy intersection.

"You can write it down in big letters if you want - the Republicans are running scared," Warden declared.

Bush backers would disagree with Warden's assessment of the horse race. But they wouldn't quarrel with her sense of urgency about this election.

"I advise anyone, whether they're young or old, whether they have to creep or crawl, that they need to vote this time," she said.