State: Reno revs up campaign in her red pickup

PENSACOLA -- Evoking Lawton Chiles' legendary walk across Florida, Janet Reno set out in her red pickup truck Tuesday to criss-cross Florida and reassure voters that she's got what it takes to beat Jeb Bush.

"We begin a journey for Florida's future across Florida to hear from all Floridians," the former U.S. attorney general told some 75 supporters at an Interstate 10 welcome center near the Alabama border. "I'm going to listen to all the people from the Panhandle to the Keys."

Reno toured a struggling inner-city elementary school, spoke to students and faculty at the University of West Florida and walked along the Gulf of Mexico at Fort Walton Beach.

She talked nostalgically of her Florida childhood and the rough-hewn Miami home her mother built, which withstood Hurricane Andrew.

"That house is a symbol to me that you can do anything you really want to if it's the right thing to do and if you put your mind to it," she said at UWF. "Ladies and gentlemen, let us go forward and, together, build Florida the right way."

Her campaign staff calls the 15-day "red truck tour" the real kickoff of her gubernatorial campaign. But it's more than that.

It's also a way to end any doubt that she's in the race for the duration.

Though she leads other Democratic challengers, Reno lags well behind incumbent Republican Gov. Jeb Bush in opinion polls. She also has battled questions about her health: She shakes noticeably from Parkinson's disease and fainted last month during a speech in New York.

The tour also is a way to recast herself as a folksy Florida original to voters who now have a vague, often negative, view of her as Bill Clinton's dour attorney general.

Reno's 1999 Ford Ranger, which starts the tour with 45,560 miles on it, will take a circuitous route around Florida before winding up at her home in suburban Miami on March 12.

The truck has become her trademark.

Just as Chiles became famous during his 1970 bid for U.S. Senate as "Walkin' Lawton," Reno hopes her pickup is highlighting a no-nonsense style that will excite voters.

The tour started in tough territory for Reno -- Florida's Panhandle. President George Bush in 2000 and Gov. Jeb Bush in 1998 won many counties by 2-to-1 and 3-to-1 margins.

Bay County Democratic chairman John Carter, for instance, is advising local Democratic candidates to stay away from Reno's appearance near Panama City.

"Any Democrat locally that is associated with Janet Reno, it is the kiss of death for them," said Carter, who backs Reno's main Democratic rival, Tampa lawyer Bill McBride. "Her strong support of gun control and her association with Clinton is not popular up here at all."

McBride, who has never run for public office before, has emerged as the strongest Reno alternative. Several key unions, including Florida teachers, are backing him, and he has raised more money than Reno. Still, he trails her by 20 points in recent polls.

Many of Reno's supporters who turned out on Tuesday couldn't name the other Democratic candidates. Several predicted Reno's passion for Florida and buck-stops-here reputation will catch fire.

"She's one of the rare people who does the right thing despite the fact that it's not always popular," said Tom McGee, a retired judge in Walton County.

Certainly none of the other candidates can match Reno's star power. Everywhere she goes people clamor for autographs and photographs. At Fort Walton Beach, even an anti-Reno protester asked for an autograph, and she happily obliged.

On Tuesday, along with most major daily newspapers and local TV reporters, Reno was accompanied by reporters from CNN, the Early Show on CBS and a documentary film crew that included Reno's niece. At A.A. Dixon Elementary School in Pensacola, Reno walked into classrooms where the kids looked as fascinated by the cameras and boom microphones as by Reno.

"You are all special, and I want to do everything I can to make sure you get the education you need to be anything you want," Reno told a group of first-graders.

The school was one of two in Florida that earned an F under the Bush administration's grading system, so parents qualified for vouchers to send students to private school. Reno opposes vouchers, saying resources should be focused on improving public schools.

McBride, meanwhile, spent the day campaigning at the eastern end of Florida's Interstate-4 corridor in Volusia County. "We've had 31/2 years . . . of the worst governor in my lifetime," McBride told about 70 Volusia County Democrats during a luncheon Tuesday. He traversed Volusia in a bus, stopping at a technology center operated by Daytona Beach Community College and the Volusia and Flagler school systems; a veterans' nursing home; two local radio stations for interviews; and four receptions with local Democrats.

Reno, 63, never mentioned her primary opponents. Instead, she spoke about improving schools with smaller class sizes and better teacher salaries. She talked about expanding drug courts and pre-kindergarten education programs. She promised to fight to preserve Florida's environment and work to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Tonya Murray, a marine biology major at University of West Florida, was one of several students struck by how few specifics Reno offered. "She talked a lot about what was wrong, but she didn't say what she was going to do about it," Murray said.

Reno's broad message included taking responsibility. From low teacher salaries to huge pension fund losses on Enron investments to eligible children remaining without health insurance, she said Bush keeps saying, "Not my problem."

"Ladies and gentleman, those are my problems, because I care about this state and love this state with all my heart," she said.

Bush campaign spokeswoman Karen Unger scoffed at the attack.

"I'd like to know when she had heard the governor say he didn't care about those issues," Unger said. "She still has yet to offer any solutions of her own. We are eight months from Election Day and we have yet to hear any specific plans or ideas from any of the Democratic candidates."

-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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