AUBURN – New York Gov. George Pataki invoked the horror of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to rally the Republican faithful Sunday night.

“When kids go off to school,” said Pataki, “they’re going to be safe from terror. Think about Sept. 11,” he continued. “Think about what he’s (Bush) doing. We do not want another Sept. 11. President Bush understands that.”

Speaking in an apple barn just down the road from where Sen. John Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, spoke a week or so earlier, Pataki returned to the theme of Sept. 11 time and again.

He used it to ballyhoo Bush as a war-time president. America, he said, was “attacked that day by people who hate us.”

“Since those attacks,” he continued, Bush has shown “strong leadership” in the war on terrorism.

He used Sept. 11 as a jumping off point to promote Bush’s economic plans as well.

Pataki said “New York lost 100,000 jobs in the minutes after the towers came down.”

Bush’s leadership, the governor said, has since resulted in the creation of more than 2 million new jobs.

And he noted Osama bin Laden’s reference in a tape aired over the weekend to the Patriot Act championed by Bush and questioned by challenger Sen. John Kerry.

“Osama bin Laden is against the Patriot Act,” Pataki said, adding that that’s because the act gives the government tools that might someday help track down the terrorist mastermind.

To repeated interruptions of “Four more years,” chants that erupted seemingly on cue, Pataki declared that America under Bush “is winning the war on terror.”

He said Bush needs another term to finish that war, and urged the 125 or so party activists to “work hard” and “we’ll carry this district in Maine.”

Pataki was introduced by 2nd District congressional candidate Brian Hamel, who in turn was introduced by Bush-Cheney Maine campaign chairman Peter Cianchette, who acted as master of ceremonies for the “Maine ’04 Victory Celebration” at Apple Ridge Farms.

The barn was decorated with a political hoe-down theme, prompting Nancy Bush Ellis to compare the place with Air Force One.

Ellis is the sister of former President George Bush, the 41st, and aunt to George W. Bush, whom she called “Georgie.”

“We’ve got to get him elected,” she urged.

State legislative candidates Lois Snowe-Mello and Jimmy Simones also attended the rally.