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STEVE BOUSQUET and ANITA KUMARSenate candidates Betty Castor and Mel Martinez try to smooth over their rough spots.
MIAMI - Appealing to undecided voters in a deadlocked race, U.S. Senate candidates Betty Castor and Mel Martinez struck a moderate tone in their last debate Monday night even as they disagreed on issues ranging from the war in Iraq to the minimum wage.
In contrast to last week's contentious debate, the final confrontation was mostly a civil exchange between Castor, a Democrat and former University of South Florida president, and Martinez, a Republican and former U.S. housing secretary. The winner will succeed retiring Sen. Bob Graham.
Both candidates aimed for the political center, with a new St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll showing the race is tied and 10 percent of the voters still undecided heading into the final week of the campaign. Both particularly focused on women and on softening lingering images of hard-line positions.
Martinez mentioned his "three moms," including two foster mothers who helped raise him after he arrived in Florida as a 15-year-old Cuban refugee. Castor said her life as a wife and mother represents the "family values" she would take to the Senate.
Castor highlighted her ability to work across party lines as a state legislator and education commissioner. But she blasted the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act as "the biggest bureaucratic mandate on schools across this nation, with very unintended consequences."
Martinez, who supports President Bush on most issues, said: "When I agree with the president, I'll support him to the hilt. When I disagree, I will not hesitate to be an independent voice."
Castor said she disagreed with Democratic nominee John Kerry on the death penalty; she supports it, while Kerry supports it only in cases of terrorism.
Castor and Martinez emphasized their support for restoration of the Everglades and their opposition to offshore oil drilling. They praised Graham's record, and Martinez volunteered that he wrote a check to Graham's first Senate campaign in 1986 when he was a Democrat.
Both Castor and Martinez agreed that undocumented immigrants living in Florida should not get driver licenses, and they said the U.S. should provide more humanitarian aid to strife-torn Haiti.
Sharp differences also emerged in the one-hour debate, broadcast on CBS-TV affiliates from the Miami campus of Florida International University and sponsored by the Miami Herald and WFOR-TV.
On the minimum wage, Castor endorsed a $1-an-hour increase, saying there are 400,000 people in Florida working full time and earning less than $11,000 a year.
"These are primarily women," Castor said. "These are people who work in our hotels, in our restaurants."
Martinez opposed a $1 increase in the minimum wage, saying it would result in small businesses hiring fewer employees.
"What we're doing is shutting the door for people to get into the work force," Martinez said.
Martinez endorsed tighter restrictions on travel to Cuba, a Bush White House policy that is highly controversial, especially in the Cuban community in South Florida. He said the tighter restrictions are needed to clamp down on Fidel Castro, but Castor countered that the policy punishes only families, not the Cuban dictator.
Martinez, like President Bush, supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Castor said she does not believe in gay marriage but said amending the Constitution to ban it would be divisive.
Martinez, who adopted his oldest child, said he opposed letting gays adopt foster children in Florida. Castor, who as a state senator voted against the ban, said decisions on placement of children "need to be made by professionals."
On the war in Iraq, Castor avoided repeating her statement in the first debate that had she known then what she knows now, she would not have voted for the war resolution. She said that while "flawed intelligence" led American troops to Baghdad, "We need to win this war. We need to stay. We need to work for free elections."
Castor said it was "absolutely false" for Martinez to claim that she had advocated a "permission slip" from the United Nations before going to war.
Martinez was direct and sounded as if he were borrowing lines from President Bush.
"I believe Iraq was a threat, whether in fact they had weapons of mass destruction or not," Martinez said. "We need a senator who is resolute, who's unflinching in the face of terror."
Castor repeatedly accused Martinez of distorting her positions, and at one point repeated a line Ronald Reagan made famous in a debate.
"There he goes again," Castor said, claiming Martinez wrongly accused her of having a litmus test on judicial appointments.
The case of former USF professor Sami Al-Arian, who was indicted last year on charges of aiding terrorists, came up only briefly.
Castor restated her stand that she was "the only one" who acted against Al-Arian when she placed him on administrative leave while she was USF president. Martinez disavowed any knowledge of Al-Arian being at a 2000 Bush campaign event in Plant City while Martinez was a co-chairman of Bush's Florida campaign.
Martinez, 58, of Orlando, is a former U.S. housing secretary under President Bush who also served two years as Orange County chairman. He's making his first bid for statewide office, and is seeking to be the first Cuban-American in the U.S. Senate.
Castor, 63, of Tampa, is a former president of the University of South Florida who earlier served as Florida's education commissioner, a post to which she was elected two times. She is also a former state senator and Hillsborough County commissioner.
The race to succeed Graham is one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country. The pressure is on Democrats to defend the seat, but it's considered the only one in the South where Democrats have an even chance of winning.
Republicans now have a working majority of 51 to 49, with independent James Jeffords of Vermont usually voting with Democrats.
To underscore the importance of a GOP victory in Florida, much of the Republican Senate leadership has come to Florida to help Martinez raise money or amplify campaign themes.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has made two trips to the state, and others who have appeared include Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; Norm Coleman, R-Minn.; Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C.; and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
Both candidates head out today for the final week of a campaign that was slow to start because of the four hurricanes.
Martinez will stump in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville, where U.S. Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Jeff Sessions of Alabama will focus on defense issues.
Castor will talk to early voters in Miami today before flying to Jacksonville to meet with African-American voters.
Gov. Jeb Bush will appear with Martinez Wednesday.