A Times Editorial

Reno's graceful concession

From the start, on the porch of her wood-frame Miami bungalow, Janet Reno showed she was not about to run anyone else's idea of a campaign. She rejected the help of her party, drove her red Ford Ranger across Florida and was greeted like a movie star whenever she stopped. Her campaign was surprisingly light on money and television commercials, and her answers weren't always "straight talk," but she was clearly her own woman.

In conceding the Democratic nomination for governor on Tuesday, Reno also showed an uncommon grace.

The voting foul-ups in Miami-Dade and Broward counties may have been an embarrassment to Florida, but they had to be a nightmare for the Reno campaign. Reno was counting on her home counties to deliver the margin of victory in her matchup with Tampa attorney Bill McBride, and her winning margins in most Miami-Dade and Broward precincts were impressive. But McBride carried the rest of the state, which gave him enough to overcome her South Florida lead. Reno then was forced to deal with the realization that some Miami-Dade and Broward precincts opened late and that some poll workers didn't know how to collect the votes from each machine.

Reno had perfectly legitimate reason to insist the vote counts be completed and rechecked in those counties. Then she quietly stepped aside, without challenge, when that work was done.

"I think that Bill McBride is the nominee fair and square," she said Tuesday. "People including myself have concerns about the electoral process. But his nomination is clear. . . . He will combine so many of the talents and skills and abilities that will really make him one of Florida's great governors, and I want to do everything that I possibly can to see that he gets elected."

Reno's kind words about McBride sounded more genuine than the typical post-primary partisan endorsement, in part because Democratic voters were treated to a positive primary campaign this year. McBride, Reno and Daryl Jones demonstrated that modern campaigns can be waged without name-calling and attack ads. Their discourse was respectful, and their one debate was almost comically polite.

The role Reno plays in the Democrats' quest to take back the Governor's Mansion is for McBride and her to decide. But the grace with which she ended the primary race only reinforces the convictions that she brought into it. She says put Florida first, and she did so on Tuesday.

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