Gov. Jeb Bush won't read former President Clinton's new book, and he's not going to see Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, either.
The movie, which won praise at the Cannes Film Festival, is an attack against the war in Iraq and the Bush family. The film suggests ties between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family.
"He has the First Amendment right to lie about my brother and his family," the governor said in Key Biscayne on Friday, "and I have a First Amendment right not to pay eight bucks for his stupid movie."
Bush said he did not think TV ads for the movie should be restricted under the new McCain- Feingold federal campaign law. Why not? "It's fiction," Bush said.
Bush will get a chance at Clinton's book if he changes his mind. Noting the governor's support of reading programs, Rep. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, delivered a complimentary copy of the book to the governor Friday.
CLINTON IN CORAL GABLES: Gov. Bush may not choose to stand in line for an autograph, but other Floridians wanting to see the former president will have to head to South Florida. The only Florida stop scheduled for Clinton's book tour is Coral Gables on July 22.
PARTISAN HISTORY LESSON: Thousands of African-American households in Sarasota and Manatee counties recently received a flier with a blistering attack on the Democratic party, courtesy of a group calling itself the Black Political History Education Project.
"The Democratic Party Owes Blacks an Apology," reads a headline on the four-page flier. "Why? The Democratic Party's historical atrocities and discrimination against blacks kept blacks in human bondage."
The mailer, borrowing a phrase from President Bush, says Democrats promote "the soft bigotry of low expectations" by opposing his education reforms. It suggests Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy had weak civil rights records and declares that Bush won Florida fairly in 2000 and that African-Americans were not disenfranchised.
The mailer comes from Sarasota resident Frances Rice, a black, retired Army officer and lifelong Republican who said she's spending hundreds of dollars of her own money to convince African-Americans to take a hard look at the history of the Democratic Party. Noting that Jim Crow laws were promoted by southern Democrats, Rice says, "My ultimate goal is to get African-Americans to leverage their votes."
CHOOSE YOUR POLL: President Bush is tied with John Kerry in Florida. No wait, he's way ahead. Three separate Florida polls came out last week, with two of them pointing to a virtual tie and one showing a solid Bush lead.
A June 15 to 20 Zogby Interactive poll of battleground states for the Wall Street Journal Online found Bush leading Kerry in Florida, 49.5 percent to 47.9 percent, and independent candidate Ralph Nader pulling support from 0.5 percent of likely voters. The difference between the two was within the poll's margin of error, just as it was with a June 21 to 23 poll for American Research Group, which showed Kerry with 47 percent support of likely voters, Bush with 46 percent and Nader with 2 percent. Meanwhile, a June 22 to 23 Fox News poll showed Bush leading with 48 percent support, Kerry with 38 percent and Nader at 3 percent.
THE MARTINEZ MESSAGE: Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martinez wants the world to know he's a conservative. His campaign last week announced the endorsement of state Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, in a press release that used the C-word six times in the first five paragraphs.
Martinez's camp called Haridopolos "one of the most conservative members of the Florida Senate" and a "principled conservative" who supports Martinez, a "fellow conservative."
Did we say Martinez calls himself a "compassionate conservative"?
DEMOCRAT GROUP TO RUN CRIMINAL CHECKS: America Coming Together, the Democratic group with about 170 paid canvassers trying to mobilize anti-President Bush voters in Florida, will start doing criminal background checks on all its employees. The move comes after the Associated Press revealed some ACT canvassers in Florida, Missouri and Ohio had felony convictions. Previously, ACT only checked the records of applicants who acknowledged they had criminal histories.
ACT Florida spokesman Tait Sye said that among its statewide staff, "only a small handful are felons who have paid their debt to society and are just looking for a second chance."
Sye said ACT knows of no Florida staffers with violent crime convictions and wondered whether the Bush-Cheney campaign would start doing background checks on its volunteer canvassers.
STOP LOBBYING SO WELL: Florida State University president T.K. Wetherell has been way too successful with legislators, Gov. Bush says.
In a letter to Wetherell on June 10, Bush was critical of the way FSU garnered 21 percent of the university system's construction dollars in the budget approved by lawmakers. As a result, the governor vetoed some FSU projects and suggested Wetherell refrain from being so aggressive when he seeks funds for projects that have not been reviewed by the Board of Governors.
Wetherell, a former speaker of the house, is one of the best manipulators of the state budget. Perhaps the governor should put him in charge of getting money for the state's entire education system instead of criticizing his success.
Bush wrote similar letters to officials at the University of South Florida to explain vetoes that included a $12-million appropriation for an Alzheimer's disease research institute. The institute already has $40-million and "considerable flexibility" to determine how it is used, Bush noted. In a separate letter to Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University officials, Bush explained the veto of funds for a new teaching gym.
BENSE'S HIRES: Rep. Allan Bense won't settle into the House speaker's office for another few months, but the Panama City Republican is already making personnel moves. His chief of staff will be Bob Ward, a longtime House staff member, and Bense also has hired communications expert Towson Fraser, who most recently handled public information for the Department of Management Services. Before that he worked as a spokesman for the Republican Party of Florida.
SHORT LAYOVER? Top-of-the-line Tallahassee lobbyist and former Pinellas County lawmaker Peter Dunbar was circumspect earlier this month about how long he would stay when Florida chief financial officer Tom Gallagher picked him as his new general counsel.
Dunbar suggested he'd leave for campaign work if Gallagher, a close friend, ran for governor as expected in 2006.
But one of Dunbar's clients, Tampa Bay Water, is hoping Dunbar will leave as soon as next March, 20 months before the general election. In a June 15 memo to the Tampa Bay Water board, general counsel Donald Conn said, "It is my expectation that (Dunbar) will return to his law firm in time to provide legislative representation for Tampa Bay Water during the 2005 Legislative Session."
"Well, he's optimistic," Dunbar said last week, but he denied he had made any such promise. "I don't foreclose the possibility I may be back that soon, but I have not made that commitment. You're way ahead of my decision-making process."
Dunbar notified Tampa Bay Water in writing June 9 that he was taking a "temporary leave of absence" from Tampa-based Pennington, Moore, Wilkinson, Bell & Dunbar to work for Gallagher. But he promised to be available to assist Tampa Bay Water and Pennington lawyers "with all matters with which I have been previously involved."
Dunbar said he would receive no compensation for any such work. And he said he has fully divested himself from the law firm. But he doubts it will stay that way forever. "At some point I will pick up the phone and say I want to return to the private sector, and I'm pretty sure they would be interested in having me back," Dunbar said.
- Times staff writers Adam C. Smith, Steve Bousquet, Lucy Morgan and Joni James contributed to this week's column. Send e-mail to bousquet@sptimes.com
