Spot check

Editor's note: To help voters evaluate political ads, Times reporters review and analyze content.

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 6, 2002

• OFFICE: Governor
• CANDIDATE: Bill McBride, Democrat
• OPPONENTS: Daryl Jones, Janet Reno, Democrats
• SPONSOR OF AD: McBride campaign
• PRODUCER: Doak, Carrier, O'Donnell & Associates
• RUNS: Statewide

THE AD: A red warning label, "Bush attack ads," appears, followed by brief pullouts of newspaper endorsements of McBride over pictures of McBride as a youth baseball coach. Over a music that sounds like a TV news theme, a male announcer says, "Jeb Bush is so desperate to stop Bill McBride, he's running attack ads Florida newspapers have called "false' and "misleading.' Newspapers have analyzed McBride's record. The Palm Beach Post praised his "character,' the Miami Herald his "vision.' The St. Pete Times called him a "born leader.' McBride is endorsed by nearly every major newspaper in Florida. Why is Jeb Bush trying to smear him? Newspapers say McBride is the one Democrat Bush fears most. If you think McBride makes Jeb Bush nervous now, wait till November." The ad ends with a Monty Python-like touch: a digitally enhanced Bush with his eyes looking over at McBride.

ANALYSIS: McBride is adhering to a basic rule of politics: No attack goes unanswered. He also is trying to alter incumbent Republican Gov. Bush's nice-guy image by creating a public impression of Bush as an attack dog. With Democrats refusing to criticize each other, the only criticism of McBride is coming from Bush & Co.

This is the second McBride "answer" ad, responding in kind to one by the Bush campaign that accuses McBride of "reckless mismanagement" at his law firm. The first McBride response showed him sitting in a classroom. But this spot, accusing Bush of "trying to smear him," is tougher, so an announcer throws the verbal punches, not McBride.

This ad also offers third-party validation of McBride's claims by lifting words from newspaper editorials, including the St. Petersburg Times, that criticized Bush's ads and recommended McBride over Reno and Jones in the Democratic primary. Only the South Florida Sun-Sentinel endorsed Reno among the state's larger papers.

The McBride campaign's "wait till November" claim is based on published comments by a prominent Republican, former Florida GOP chairman Tom Slade, and by pollster Jim Kane. Both have cited a widespread perception supported by recent newspaper polls that McBride would be a tougher opponent for Bush than would Reno.

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