Presidents Clash Over Florida Governor's Race
Bush, Clinton in Last-Minute Pushes for Jeb Bush, McBride
URL: washingtonpost.com
By Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 3, 2002; Page A04
TAMPA, Nov. 2 -- President Bush made one last pitch for his brother the governor and former president Bill Clinton linked arms with the governor's Democratic opponent in a collision that evoked memories of the major political clash here two years ago.
The dueling appearances by the president and his predecessor underscored the huge stakes for the national parties in this tight race, with Republicans desperate to hold the statehouse for the next presidential campaign and Democrats vowing to defeat one Bush brother after another.
Former vice president Al Gore, who has been using his Florida vote-counting experience as fodder to whip up Democrats at campaign appearances, arrives Sunday to campaign with the governor's challenger, lawyer Bill McBride.
On George W. Bush's 12th trip to Florida since becoming president, he headlined a rally at the Sun Dome here, McBride's hometown.
Clinton, a day after campaigning in Maryland, addressed rallies in Miami, Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, avoiding the more conservative central and northern parts of the state.
The two presidents were wading into an increasingly shrill race. The Web site of the Florida Republican Party has a photo of Clinton along with pictures of the two Bush brothers and the headline, "Who do you trust?" McBride, in his own attack, accused the governor of running a "campaign of lies" that is "the most dishonest campaign in modern Florida history."
When Bush last visited Florida, just over two weeks ago, his brother was slipping in polls and White House officials feared he could lose. But he moved into a small lead in several polls after McBride failed during a widely viewed Oct. 22 debate to offer a specific answer to moderator Tim Russert's flurry of questions about how he would pay for his plan to reduce class sizes in public schools. The lapse played into Bush's strategy of trying to paint McBride as a public policy novice who had offered only vague plans. Democrats respond that Bush, too, has dodged questions about details.
Jeb Bush joined the president in the middle of a three-day bus tour of the state. "No one is calling this a victory lap, because this is Florida and we have tight elections," said Todd Harris, the governor's campaign spokesman.
Bob Poe, the Florida Democratic chairman, said the Bush and Clinton visits were designed more to help the parties rev up their most loyal supporters than to reach new voters. "We can remind Democrats of the great economy they had for eight years," Poe said with a laugh.
At Miami Dade Community College, Clinton was introduced by Rep. Carrie P. Meek (D-Fla.) as "the honorable brother" and addressed the issue of voting rights in the mostly black neighborhood.
Clinton urged his listeners to vote, asking them to undo troubles of past Florida elections. He told them that he was old enough to remember a time when there was a poll tax in the South that disenfranchised black voters.
"I've seen black people turned away from the polls in droves," he said, drawing cheers.
Although he and McBride were dressed identically in blue shirts and red ties, Clinton was the main event that Lillie Seay, 59, a disabled Miami resident, dragged her wheelchair through the throng to see. As Clinton waded into the crowd to clasp hands after his brief remarks, Seay, with a friend's help, raised herself out of her wheelchair to hug the former president around the neck.
"We love you! We love you! We love you!" the crowd chanted as Clinton, who stopped on his way out to snap his fingers to the beat of Aretha Franklin's "Respect," disappeared from view.
Both parties kicked off final get-out-the-vote efforts here and across the country, with the Republican National Committee e-mailing millions of supporters "A Message from the President" signed "George W. Bush."
"If you care about our culture, and the values we pass on to our children, about our country, then vote Tuesday," his note reads.
The golfer Jack Nicklaus recorded a get-out-the vote message for the governor that is being telephoned to thousands of homes. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the president's rival from the primaries of 2000, campaigned with the governor this week and recorded a similar message.
Democrats turned over their weekly radio address to Tom Strickland, who is challenging Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) in one of the nation's most closely watched races. "People have been hit hard by the downturn in the economy," Strickland said, urging listeners to vote Democratic to "start to get our economy working again."
Gore, who was in Chicago today, is scheduled to accompany McBride to three churches on Sunday morning, then attend two get-out-the-vote rallies. On Monday, Gore will speak at a send-off for a fly-around closing tour by McBride.
The president left Washington this morning on a three-day, 12-stop tour that kept him in Tampa tonight, with a stay in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Sunday night. He finishes in Crawford, Tex., where he will vote Tuesday morning.
In the portion of Bush's stump speech that deals with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, he has begun qualifying his previous charge of a direct link between Hussein and the al Qaeda terrorist network. "He would like nothing more than to use an al Qaeda type network, if not al Qaeda itself, to be the advance army to utilize his training and his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction on his most hated enemy, the American people," Bush said in Atlanta.
Roig-Franzia reported from Miami.
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