State: Spurt of optimism infuses delegates

Fired up by electrifying speeches from the likes of Al Gore, many delegates said that for the first time in years they don't feel like an endangered species in Florida.

The convention drew a record turnout of more than 2,500 delegates, with more young people than almost anyone could recall at such an event. There was little of the dissension that has beset the state party for so long.

The delegates focused on improving public schools as the centerpiece of their message.

"After the 2000 election, we were angry, depressed, and had all kinds of emotions, but now you can just feel us coming back together," said Jim Callahan, an Orange County delegate. "In 10 years, I haven't been this optimistic, and I don't think even in 1991 we had the optimism you feel at this convention."

At the 1991 state convention, Florida Democrats got their first good look at presidential candidate Bill Clinton.

But after a final day featuring rousing speeches from Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Florida Democrats today return to reality.

Democrats are challenging a popular governor, Jeb Bush, who polls show would trounce any Democratic challenger if the election were held today. The party hasn't found well-known candidates for key Cabinet races such as chief financial officer and agriculture commissioner. And if party activists are energized, it's not showing up in campaign accounts so far.

Neither of the leading Democratic candidates, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and Tampa lawyer Bill McBride, is showing any fundraising strength. The state GOP in the last three months raised about $9.8-million, compared with $1.5-million by the Democratic Party.

"I don't understand the slow fundraising," said New Smyrna Beach Democrat Bernard Sechen, a delegate. "You can't elect people without money. But I hope and I think that it will start to pick up now. Everyone is so enthusiastic."

The state GOP always raises more money than the Democrats, and the Orlando convention brought in $500,000 to the state party. But more important than campaign dollars, say party leaders, the Orlando convention fired people up.

"You've got 2,500 of the hardest-working Democrats in Florida as energized as they've ever been," said Karl Koch, a party consultant. "This is where it starts."

On Sunday, former vice presidential candidate Lieberman and Sen. Kerry, both possible presidential contenders for 2004, continued the theme other presidential hopefuls sounded Saturday: It's time for Democrats to stand up and challenge the George W. Bush administration.

"We can't rely on fear to forge our future," Lieberman said. "Nor can we be intimidated by the polling numbers of our opponents. After all, we've beaten a George Bush with 80 percent approval ratings before -- just ask Bill Clinton."

Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, said patriotism requires standing up for principles and debating critical national issues. "We cannot permit Republicans to pretend the war is the only issue before our country," he said.

Democrats, Kerry said, need to define themselves by pursuing universal health care, early childhood health care and education and join "a new mission to the moon here on Earth" to find new energy sources besides oil.

He hailed the Democrat's fiscal responsibility during the 1990s, and said Republicans are turning Democratic surpluses into deficits.

"Not only are they racing back to the voodoo economics of the 1980s. Even worse, now they want to take money from Social Security and Medicare, and give it to the wealthiest Americans," Kerry said. "It's Robin Hood in reverse, and it's unacceptable under any standard of decency in America."

More than any of five potential presidential candidates courting Florida (others on Saturday included Gore and Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Chris Dodd of Connecticut) Lieberman criticized President Bush's foreign policy.

The Bush administration, he said, avoided involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for too long, and has "recently muddied our moral clarity."

"Israel has had to defend itself against suicide bombers just as America did," he said. "Yet, the Bush administration has publicly and persistently pressured Israel not to do exactly what we ourselves have rightly done to fight the terrorism that struck us on Sept. 11."

Democrats also heard from their three candidates for attorney general: state Sen. Buddy Dyer of Orlando, Tallahassee Mayor Scott Maddox, and Deputy Attorney General George Sheldon. They, too, sounded a fairly uniform theme: standing up for the rights of the least powerful and beating Republican front-runner Charlie Crist.

The difference between having a Democrat like Bob Butterworth, who is retiring, in office and having Crist, said Dyer, is the "difference between darkness and dawn."

"I'm flattered," Crist said when told none of the Democrats mentioned any of his Republican primary opponents. "But they ought to be focused on a positive message for Florida's future."

Todd Harris, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, dismissed the talk of energized Democrats leaving the convention.

"When you pack 2,500 liberals in a hot and humid ballroom and have speakers promise to raise taxes, no one should be surprised when the crowd jumps to its feet and applauds," Harris said.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk