Democratic presidential hopefuls are lining up to campaign for the man they think has a shot at unseating the president's brother. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee reworked his schedule to join McBride and dozens of fundraisers and politicos for a strategy session in Tampa today. And party leaders in Washington are buzzing over an internal poll showing McBride just 5 points behind Gov. Jeb Bush.

"This is an important race, and Florida means a lot to all of us," said U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, a potential 2004 presidential candidate. "Anybody who's got his kind of background and has his plain-spoken approach to life and politics has a real shot."

A fellow Vietnam veteran, Kerry intends to campaign with McBride in October. U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and former Vice President Al Gore have committed to stumping for the Tampa lawyer -- McBride was an early Bill Bradley supporter in 2000 -- and a spokesman for John Edwards said the North Carolina senator wants to help McBride too.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not yet positioning for a White House run, but she phoned McBride Wednesday to offer her help on the campaign trail.

"Not only do the 2004 Democratic candidates want to campaign with McBride, they'll want to deliver up to McBride money, hardware and staff," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.

While McBride spent Wednesday campaigning throughout the state with his running mate, state Sen. Tom Rossin, Democratic Party chief Terry McAuliffe was boosting the McBride buzz in Washington.

Meeting with journalists and later with U.S. House Democrats, McAuliffe touted a state party poll taken Sept. 13-15 that showed Bush leading McBride 48 percent to 43 percent. Nearly a fourth of the voters polled knew little or nothing about McBride, giving Democrats more fodder to convince prospective donors that McBride is a serious threat.

"If we can beat Jeb Bush, and the numbers show that we can, that's what gets people excited across the country. . . . For the national party, Florida is critical for '04," McAuliffe said.

Republicans, however, have said privately they had expected the race to tighten considerably as it got closer to the election.

Controlling the Governor's Mansion helps in winning a presidential primary, which is why a potentially close race against Bush is expected to draw money and attention from across the country.

"It'll be huge amounts of money," said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University. "This is the replay of 2000 and the forerunner to 2004."

McBride, whose post-primary momentum was stalled by election day problems, meets in Tampa today with fundraisers and operatives. He also will appear in Miami with former gubernatorial candidates Janet Reno and state Sen. Daryl Jones in an effort to demonstrate a party unified against Bush.

Meanwhile, the governor on Wednesday basked in the support of 38 elected sheriffs, 13 of them Democrats, as he stood in front of GOP headquarters in Tallahassee to tout his record fighting crime.

"The bottom line is, our citizens are safer today than they were four years ago," said Bay County Sheriff Guy Tunnell of Panama City, a former Democrat who changed to the GOP two years ago.

The governor also traveled to Hialeah, where he told 250 Cuban-Americans in Spanish and English that his administration has improved the state's drug policy, education programs and public safety.

"Doing what is right matters a lot more than being popular," Bush said. "My opponent is offering empty promises without specifics. He attacks, he attacks, he attacks, but at the end of the day he won't tell you what he'll do differently."

McBride campaigned in Tallahassee, where he formally announced Rossin as his running mate and filed their campaign papers.

Rossin and his wife, Joyce, spent the day campaigning with McBride and his wife, Alex Sink. McBride repeatedly cited Rossin's legislative experience, which McBride lacks, and his ability to court moderate voters statewide. He also is from South Florida, the Democratic base.

"I needed someone who could help build that legislative agenda and get things through," McBride told about 100 supporters who crowded an airport conference room in Orlando. "He knows how to make things run."

The Bush campaign and the state Republican Party have attacked McBride repeatedly over layoffs at his former law firm, Holland & Knight, which happened after he left.

"I'm calling on the governor, the current governor, and I'd like him to raise the level of his play," McBride said. "We don't need all this negative stuff. What we need is a real dialogue and discourse about our future."

He also repeated his challenge to Bush that they hold a series of debates on the bed of a flatbed truck, in the spirit of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

But two hours after Rossin submitted the papers to register as McBride's running mate, the Bush campaign blasted Rossin as a "tax-and-spend liberal" who raised taxes for "seniors and savers," a reference to his opposition to cutting the intangibles tax.

In 1993, Rossin sold the bank he founded, Flagler National, to SunTrust. About 150 former Flagler employees lost their jobs, and Rossin, the Bush campaign noted, received $137,000 in severance pay. He also received $338,000 in deferred compensation.

Rossin noted that his opponent in his first campaign in 1994 raised the same issue. Voters didn't listen then and they won't listen now, he predicted.

The bank helped all employees find new jobs in the banking industry and provided severance, he said. As for his compensation, he said it was no golden parachute. "I was the CEO of that bank for 19 years. I had stock options," he said.

"I've been tried and tested. I've won three elections," Rossin said. "These are old charges that have been discounted any number of times. This election should not be about sound bites."

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

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Lucy Morgan

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