State: Candidates begin duel of the TV ads

TALLAHASSEE -- The day after Bill McBride launched his first TV ad criticizing Gov. Jeb Bush , the governor responded Wednesday with an ad saying McBride cares only about "tearing me down."

The tone of the Bush ad, like the McBride ad it answers, is mild by modern standards of TV advertising. But it offers a hint of what may lie ahead and suggests that Bush and McBride are finally ready to engage each other in a bitter over-the-air TV fight in the last three weeks of the campaign.

"All these negative ads on TV won't do a single thing to help our children get a better education. But I will," Bush says, wearing a coat and tie and speaking calmly and directly into the camera. "I've worked hard to build Florida up, but my opponent only seems interested in tearing me down."

Bush then ticks off a series of points that are also central to his bid for four more years: student achievement is on the rise and more money than ever is being spent on schools. Then, getting a little bit ahead of himself, Bush says, 'We're building 12,000 new classrooms," even though that is part of a proposal to divert part of a tax over the next five years that still requires legislative approval and the sale of $2.8-billion worth of bonds.

Bush's new ad invites comparisons to the ad McBride ran in August, criticizing Bush for an earlier ad questioning McBride's management of the Holland & Knight law firm.

Like McBride's in-the-classroom response to a negative Bush ad that ran before the Sept. 10 Democratic primary, Bush taped his new ad some time ago and kept it on hand for just such a moment. "It was filmed some time ago," Bush campaign spokesman Todd Harris said.

On another front, Bush continues to aggressively use direct mail to draw a contrast between his record and McBride's. A new mailing to Republican voters portrays McBride as weak on crime, education and the economy, and includes a form to request an absentee ballot from the local elections supervisor.

McBride said he hasn't seen the new Bush TV ad, but had heard about it.

"I don't think those things are going to work," he said. "The only thing that's going to work are the facts. He's constantly talking about my campaign instead of talking about his record," McBride said.

The newest Bush and McBride ads come as a new internal poll for the McBride campaign points to a tied race, with both candidates at 47 percent. The Oct. 13-14 poll of 600 likely voters shows McBride even, despite half of the surveyed voters saying they knew little about the Tampa lawyer and first-time candidate for office.

According to an internal memo from pollster Geoff Garin, the poll claims most voters trust McBride more than Bush on key issues, including education. That finding contradicts a recent St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll, which gave Bush higher marks than McBride on the question of improving schools, 49 percent to 44 percent.

"While McBride is making progress on the right issues with the right voters, this race is far from won," says the memo, given to key McBride supporters. "The Bush camp will react to poll numbers like these by spending a lot of money and saying scary things about Bill McBride in the final weeks. It will take an all-out push, hard work, and a disciplined message to carry the campaign over the finish line to victory."

Bush spokesman Harris said the McBride numbers are "not at all reflective" of what Bush's internal polls show. "We are exactly where we thought we would be at this point in the race" he said.

The new Republican absentee ballot mailer bashes McBride as having no plans for creating jobs or fighting crime. "McBride's special interest promises will require $1-billion in tax hikes, or massive cuts," it says without noting that McBride's main promises are popular ones -- reducing class sizes and improving teacher pay.

-- Times political editor Adam C. Smith contributed to this report.

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