Senate candidates stake out stands

In their first joint appearance, four candidates work on outlining their differences in broad strokes.

TIMES POLITICAL EDITOR NICKENS E-mail: Click here

By TIM NICKENS

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 10, 2000

WESLEY CHAPEL -- In their first joint appearance of the campaign season, Florida's four major U.S. Senate candidates focused Friday on refining their roles in a race that has yet to capture voters' attention.

Republican Rep. Bill McCollum, his larger-than-life image beamed via satellite from Washington towering over the other candidates at the Saddlebrook Resort, emphasized his experience in Washington and his allegiance to the conservative values of retiring Sen. Connie Mack.

State Education Commissioner Tom Gallagher, McCollum's opponent in the Republican primary, called himself "an agent of change" who would take Florida's values to Congress.

State Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson, the presumptive Democratic nominee, decried the partisanship in Washington and compared himself to the late U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper, who was the standard-bearer in Congress for the elderly and infirm.

And state Rep. Willie Logan, the former Opa-locka Democrat running without any party affiliation, underscored his independence by embracing some initiatives from both parties. The debate at the annual convention of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors offered a glimpse of a race where candidates are still drawing comparisons in broad strokes rather than in fine details.

Gallagher and McCollum, the two Republicans, aligned themselves closely with George W. Bush's presidential campaign. They both said they generally supported the Texas governor's call for creating a missile defense shield, cutting taxes significantly and allowing younger workers to invest a portion of Social Security payroll taxes into individual investment accounts.

Nelson disagreed.

The Democrat pointed out that the technology isn't ready for an enormous missile shield envisioned by the Republicans. Nelson said the Republican tax cuts are too large, and he criticized the notion of diverting money from Social Security.

"I think his proposal would shred the social safety net," Nelson said.

The Democrat supported the same general positions held by the Clinton administration and Vice President Al Gore. The greatest contrasts were provided by Logan, a long-shot candidate who has little campaign money and is touring the state on a motorcycle.

The others each supported some type of campaign finance reform, although McCollum criticized Nelson's suggestion of using public money to partially finance congressional campaigns. But Logan noted that the others were raising money for their respective political parties and receiving aid from them.

"This reminds me of one of those situations where you tell your children, "Do as I say, not as I do,' " he said.

Logan also was the only candidate to support lifting the economic embargo of Cuba. The others said they supported the normalization of trade relations with China but not Cuba.

"I think there are big differences between China and Cuba on trade and many other things," McCollum said.

Gallagher met with mixed success in two attempts to criticize McCollum on specific issues. He criticized the congressman's support of a change in wiretapping laws in 1998, which he said allows investigators to listen in on phone conversations without a court order. He also said a McCollum-led effort to overhaul federal bankruptcy laws would treat a bankrupt consumer's credit card debt the same as child support.

"To me, that is something to be embarrassed about," Gallagher said.

McCollum and his aides said Gallagher and Time magazine mischaracterize the bankruptcy legislation. They said child support and alimony would get paid before credit card debt .

Federal investigators must still get a court order to tap an individual's telephone, McCollum said, but the order now applies to any phone the individual uses.

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