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Women's votes could swing governor's race
By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- When it comes to electing Florida's next governor, what women want could prove decisive. They likely will outnumber men at the polls Nov. 5, and Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and Democrat Bill McBride are running nearly neck-and-neck among women, according to a St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll.
To showcase his support among women in the crucial Tampa Bay region, Bush brought in a high-powered relative on Tuesday: his sister-in-law, first lady Laura Bush. She starred at an evening "Women for Jeb" rally that drew more than 500 to the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel. The crowd waved signs, yelled and chanted "Four more years!" as Bush arrived with his wife, Columba, at the first of several events underscoring the governor's ties to the first family. Mrs. Bush said the governor has excelled at the issues women care about most: education, jobs and safety. She compared his governing style to his brother, President Bush. "Like my husband, he does so with a civil tongue and a compassionate spirit," Mrs. Bush said. "A leader must know how to lower his voice and raise his sights." Under Jeb Bush, the first lady said, more women than ever have influence in state government and hold positions as judges and on powerful state boards. The Times/Herald poll showed Bush is substantially more popular among men than McBride. With 34 days till the election, one way McBride can win is to attract more women than Bush. McBride spokesman Alan Stonecipher said women voters will prefer McBride on three issues: his education plan, Bush's failure to improve the state child welfare agency and McBride's support for abortion rights. Bush is opposed to abortion. "Bush is pro-life and women voters need to know that," Stonecipher said. McBride's task is complicated by the fact that women, especially older women and blacks, overwhelmingly favored his primary election opponent, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. "McBride has work to do among women, and I think he'll do that," said Toni Van Pelt, a St. Petersburg travel agent and past president of the National Organization for Women in Florida. "Women will support him, but he ran in the primary against a real strong woman that most of us supported." McBride and Bush both seek support from moderate women and registered independents such as Jennifer Beatrice, 33, of Pompano Beach. An office manager for an electrical contractor, Beatrice says she will vote for Bush, mostly because of his commitment to improving schools. "I think he's put a lot into education," said Beatrice, whose 9-year-old daughter, Mackenzie, attends McNab Elementary, which got a B the past two years under the governor's school grading plan. "I see the schools getting better all the time. I can't stand McBride. I think he's a phony, and he's making empty promises." Beatrice also is a smoker and does not think much of McBride's proposal to increase cigarette taxes by 50 cents a pack to improve education. "Putting tobacco money in the schools is ridiculous," Beatrice said. The first time Bush ran for governor in 1994, he lost the battle for women voters to Democrat Lawton Chiles, and he narrowly lost the election. The next time, in 1998, Bush prevailed among women and easily defeated Democrat Buddy MacKay. Democrats tried to use the abortion issue to an advantage by contrasting MacKay's support for abortion rights with Bush's personal opposition to abortion. This time, abortion has not been an issue, but McBride's campaign says that will change. Democratic strategist Jim Krog, a veteran of both Chiles campaigns, said McBride's 21-point advantage among working women is a good sign for the challenger. "They're much more likely to vote, and they're more independent," Krog said. "They're more likely to split their tickets than anybody else. You want to concentrate on them." Two Washington-based pollsters who crafted the latest survey for the Times/Herald poll put different interpretations on the results. Kellyanne Conway of the Polling Co., whose political clients are primarily Republican candidates, said McBride's lack of an advantage among all women is not a good sign for the Democrats. "The fact that Bush is where he is among women is quite remarkable," she said. "Any Democrat should be doing much better out of the gate." Rob Schroth of Schroth & Associates, whose political clients are primarily Democrats, said McBride still has time to win over enough women to become governor. But he said McBride must move quickly. Until now, Schroth said, the fight for women voters has favored Bush. While McBride and Reno battled for the Democratic nomination, he said, Bush ran TV ads highlighting endorsements by three former Florida teachers of the year -- two of them women -- and his efforts to secure a traffic signal in a rural county where the school superintendent is a Democratic woman who supports Bush. Schroth said McBride must prevail among women by a greater margin than Bush prevails with men, because women generally account for 51 to 54 percent of voters at the polls on election day. Laura Bush's whirlwind trip through the bay area included an address to a regional summit on early childhood cognitive development, the fourth of its kind in the country. Mrs. Bush, a former school librarian, emphasized the importance of teaching children to read. "The first five years of life are so critical for children to develop the physical, emotional, and social skills they will need for the rest of their lives," Mrs. Bush said. "Infants and toddlers need parents and caregivers who understand the importance of these early years." The Bush family also visited Ronnie and Chakeiva Collins, a couple from Plant City, and their 2-day-old son at Tampa General Hospital. They were the first recipients of the "I'm a Reader!" kit, which will be given to new Florida mothers. The kit includes a children's book and an application for a library card. -- Times staff writer Melanie Ave contributed to this report.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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That's not good news for McBride, but he holds a big lead over Bush among women who work outside the home, and many of those women have children in school. More voters overall, men and women, trust Bush to improve schools than trust McBride.
