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All eyes turn to Florida
By ADAM C. SMITH, STEVE BOUSQUET and WES ALLISON The nation is watching. Will the president's brother suffer a huge upset or will he become Florida's first Republican governor reelected to a second term? Can Flori-Duh finally get its elections straight? And when will the ballot counting end? For Floridians, today's voting will answer those questions and decide whether the next occupant of the Governor's Mansion will be forced through citizen initiatives to dramatically increase spending on schools. Elections officials throughout the state are warily preparing for heavy turnout, while U.S. Justice Department officials are monitoring five Florida counties and hundreds of partisan lawyers are standing ready for potential legal fights. The polls will open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Republican Gov. Jeb Bush and Democratic challenger Bill McBride , their voices strained from a weekend of full-bore campaigning, spent Monday on a statewide blitz of quick rallies, volunteer hand-shaking and last-ditch appeals to turn out the vote. Their race has dominated the campaign season, but voters today also decide a slew of local and legislative races, and 10 proposed amendments to the state constitution. They'll elect an attorney general and agriculture commissioner, and in at least one tight congressional race, between Democratic incumbent Karen Thurman of Dunnellon and Republican Ginny Brown-Waite, could play a decisive role in whether Republican retain control of the U.S. House. The last day of Jeb Bush 's last campaign for governor was a sentimental journey across Florida aboard a plush jet owned by one of the richest men in America, H. Wayne Huizenga of Fort Lauderdale. Along the way Bush was forced to order a halt to what he called an "outrageous" round of last-minute phone calls to voters that claimed Bush was the only candidate for governor who is pro-life and supports a "traditional family." The call was scripted by political consultant John Dowless, former executive director of the Christian Coalition of Florida, who said he never cleared it with the Florida Republican Party, which was paying him to make the calls. Bush denounced it, and the minicontroversy in the final day of campaigning did little to knock him off stride. Crowds in Pensacola, Jacksonville and Orlando cheered "four more years!" on Bush's arrival, and the governor asked for a huge turnout to help "make history" on Tuesday. Only two Republicans have won the governor's mansion since the 1870s -- Claude Kirk in 1966 and Bob Martinez in 1986 -- and both lost re-election bids. Until 1968, governors were barred from seeking second terms. "I'm a little tired, excited about where we stand, and a little nostalgic," Bush said, realizing he won't get another chance to see these campaign crowds, at least not as a candidate for governor. "Tomorrow I'm going to know if I'm going to have a contract extension for four more years or I'm going to go back to Miami and pursue other things. I'm confident I'm going to be governor four more years." Bush ended the campaign Monday night in Coconut Grove with a rally featuring Latin music and a crowd of several hundred people. He plans to vote this morning at a church in Coral Gables. For McBride, Monday amounted to the political equivalent of a nervous groom wondering if his bride would show up. Trailing Bush in every poll, McBride supporters are counting on a huge turnout to win, especially in South Florida, the state's Democratic stronghold. "We had a union meeting the other night and we had hundreds of guys out, yard signs are everywhere," said Sean Mitchell, an ironworkers organizer and early McBride supporter who attended a rally in West Palm Beach. "My guys are more enthused about this election than they were about 2000, because they feel they got robbed." McBride quit last year as managing partner of Holland & Knight, the state's largest law firm, to run for governor, and managed a come-from-nowhere upset over Janet Reno to win the Democratic nomination in September. Running against Bush has been much tougher, however. The governor has repeatedly tried to saddle McBride with the mantle of a tax-and-spend liberal, putting McBride on the defensive. The ballot initiative mandating smaller class sizes became entwined with the governor's race: McBride supported it while Bush opposed it and hammered McBride for refusing to detail how he would pay for it. Supporters of the amendment aired last-minute TV commercials urging voters to vote for it because Bush had failed to reduce class sizes. In Temple Terrace, the governor stopped at a Hillsborough County campaign office and took a turn working the phones, calling voters. He helped one woman make up her mind on the ballot initiatives. "Amendment 9. Bad," Bush said, referring to the class size amendment. "Definitely no." Despite the polls, McBride and his wife, Alex Sink, appeared optimistic and upbeat as they bounded from rally to rally with singer Jimmy Buffett. "What's not fun about this?" Sink asked. A lunchtime crowd of 2,500 people turned out in downtown Tampa for a rally featuring McBride, Democratic attorney general candidate Buddy Dyer, U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa and U.S. Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson. McBride laughingly acknowledged that he was merely the warm up act for the main draw: Buffett, who sang Cheeseburger in Paradise and Margaritaville. "... Some people claim there's a woman to blame, but I know it's all the Bushies fault," Buffett sang to cheers. McBride's day began with a short gathering with former vice president Al Gore at the Opa-Locka airport and continued over 12 hours with stops in Miami, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville. While Dyer campaigned with McBride throughout the day, Republican attorney general candidate Charlie Crist did not ride on the 36-passenger Bush campaign plane, on which flight attendants served trays of gulf shrimp, mussels, fresh fruit and warm chocolate chip cookies. The use of Huizenga's jetliner, partly paid for by the Bush campaign, was a fitting symbol for the most lavishly financed gubernatorial campaign in Florida history. Meanwhile, Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, who has spent about $2-million seeking to hold onto the job he was appointed to by Bush, bused from West Palm Beach to Tallahassee for a midday appearance in Orlando with the governor. Bronson later waved campaign signs in Ocala. David Nelson, the Democratic candidate for agriculture commissioner, spent Monday hustling votes in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Nelson has spent $16,000 from the beginning of his campaign earlier this year to win his primary and challenge the present office holder. -- The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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