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Candidates bask in light of stars
By WES ALLISON, Times Staff Writer
President Bush will make one last stop in Florida to help his brother's re-election campaign, and this time he's coming to Tampa. With one week left before the general election, the president is the biggest of big names hitting the campaign trail in Florida. The White House would not confirm details of the president's visit but has inquired about using the University of South Florida soccer stadium or the SunDome on Saturday. It will be the president's 12th visit to Florida -- and his second in two weeks -- since his inauguration last year. Today in St. Petersburg, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush campaigns among veterans with U.S. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was a Vietnam POW. On Wednesday, former first lady Barbara Bush campaigns in Orlando, her second Florida stop in two weeks. And Sunday in Davie, the governor is scheduled to campaign with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Democrats are bringing their own stars. Janet Reno, the former U.S. attorney general who lost to Bill McBride in the Democratic primary, attends a $500-per-person fundraiser with him Wednesday evening at One Urban Center in Tampa. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, and state Sen. Daryl Jones, D-Miami, who placed third in the September primary, also are scheduled to attend. Several national union leaders, including John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, are expected to campaign on McBride's behalf as well. At 9 a.m. today Bush, McCain and Anthony Principi, the U.S. secretary of Veterans Affairs, will visit the Sun Pavilion at the Bayfront Center, 401 First St. S. They then travel to Port Charlotte to visit an American Legion post. Although Reno, who served in the Clinton administration, has been campaigning steadily for McBride since the primary, his campaign has shunned offers from national Democrats, who may be perceived as too liberal. But former President Clinton, who remains popular among black voters, is helping out subtly. McBride attended a Florida Democratic Party fundraiser with him last week in Greenwich, Conn., and Clinton held a conference call with 25 African-American ministers from around the state on Friday. "He strongly suggested that we encourage our people to get out and vote, that this election at the state level is going to impact the nation, and I agree with him," said the Rev. Louis Murphy of Mount Zion Progressive AME Church in St. Petersburg. "It is."
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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