US President George W Bush and candidates from his centre-right Republican party pounced on Kerry's gaffe, in which he seemed to imply that US soldiers wind up in Iraq because they are uneducated.
Kerry says he misspoke, botching what was meant as a jab at Bush's Iraq policy, and on Wednesday sidestepped Bush's demand that he apologize to US troops for his remarks two days earlier.
But with campaigning for next Tuesday's elections at fever pitch, the damage was done and some fellow centre-left Democrats scrambled to disavow Kerry.
They included Harold Ford Jr, locked in a tight Senate race in the southern state of Tennessee that could decide whether the Democrats regain the majority in the 100-seat Senate.
'Whatever the intent, Senator Kerry was wrong to say what he said,' media reports quoted a Ford statement as saying. 'He needs to apologize to our troops.'
Polls show the Democrats within reach of overturning 12 years of Republican control of the House of Representatives and with good chances of winning the Senate, too.
Tim Walz, a Democratic candidate for Congress from Minnesota, told Cable News Network (CNN) that Kerry cancelled a campaign appearance with him out of fear that his presence would be a distraction.
Kerry, who lost the last US presidential election to Bush, accuses the White House of twisting his remarks to score a low blow before Tuesday's voting.
'Of course, I'm sorry about a botched joke. You think I love botched jokes? I mean, it's pretty stupid,' Kerry told talk-show host Don Imus on Wednesday.
The flap began with a Kerry speech at a California campaign rally Monday about the importance of learning.
'You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq,' Kerry said.
On Wednesday, he said he had meant to say 'get us stuck in Iraq' to blast the Bush administration's lack of preparation for the war.
Bush himself has been of limited use to Republican candidates this year, an unpopular president defending an unpopular war.
He seized on Kerry's remarks at a campaign rally in Georgia on Tuesday, calling them insulting and demanding his 2002 opponent apologize to US soldiers.
Bush's spokesman Tony Snow kept up the drumbeat Wednesday, claiming that the issue was what Kerry said, not what he had meant to say.
'It's not hard. I mean, this is helpful advice - to say, 'I'm sorry, I messed up. Please forgive me,'' Snow told reporters.
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