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Orlando rally to jump-start Bush team

As many as 12,000 supporters are expected Saturday at President Bush's first campaign rally in the country.

President Bush returns to Florida on Saturday for what promises to be a powerful show of grassroots support in America's biggest swing state.

The Bush-Cheney campaign has chosen Orlando for its first campaign rally in the country: no policy pronouncements, no fundraising, simply an opportunity to fire up the ground forces for a general election campaign that's in full-throttle far earlier than typical election years.

As many as 12,000 Florida Bush supporters are expected to attend the noon rally at the Orange County Convention Center. Afterward, many will hop in campaign vans to start knocking on doors, manning phone banks and mobilizing voters for Bush.

"We've done a lot of recruiting of (grass roots) leaders up to now, and this event is kind of like a rallying point to put them to work," said Reed Dickens, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign.

The trip will mark the president's 20th visit to the state that narrowly put him in the White House. Kicking off the campaign in the so-called I-4 corridor between St. Petersburg and Daytona is fitting because that's where statewide elections are won and lost among swing voters and independents. Four years ago, Bush lost Orange County, the first time since World War II that a Democrat won the county in a presidential election.

A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll earlier this month underscored how much of a battleground Florida stands to be again this year. The poll of registered voters showed Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry leading Bush in Florida, 49 percent to 43 percent. Among crucial independent voters in Florida, it also found widespread doubts about the president's record and about the direction of the country.

Another poll released Monday by Rasmussen Reports found Kerry leading Bush 48 percent to 45 percent, a statistical tie.

Kerry has said he intends to fight hard for Florida's 27 electoral votes. He campaigned in Tampa and South Florida last week and is expected to return within several weeks. A campaign aide brushed off the latest example of Bush's attention to Florida.

"This will be an excellent opportunity for George Bush to explain to Floridians why 67,000 jobs have been lost under his watch, why more and more Florida families are unable to afford the high cost of health care, and why he has left America alone and isolated in the world," said Kerry campaign spokesman Mark Kornblau.

The president has jumped into the political fray much earlier than incumbents typically do. He started criticizing Kerry by name last week and launched ads in Florida and other battleground states depicting Kerry as a taxraiser who is weak on national defense. Kerry has responded with ads of his own bashing Bush, as have independent Democratic political groups.

The early combative tone of the campaign is not the only thing that thus far has set this race apart.

Republicans for months have been preparing an unprecedented grass roots campaign to register new Republicans and ensure a record turnout among Republicans in Florida. Saturday's rally is aimed at kicking the effort into full gear.

In addition to paid field staff scattered across the state, the campaign has about 17,000 volunteers signed up to help the campaign and has trained more than 2,000 volunteers.

In late January more than 500 people showed up for a training session in Miami, making it the biggest such session in the country.

Meanwhile, liberal groups operating independently from the Kerry campaign are also mobilizing in Florida, canvassing neighborhoods and running their own TV ads.

- Adam C. Smith can be reached at 727893-8241 or adam@sptimes.com