Jeb Bush ‘Still Very Strong’ in His Quest for Reelection

It has not been an easy year for Jeb Bush. The child-welfare agency he ultimately is responsible for has been rocked by repeated scandals, and many voters disagree with his stance in favor of school vouchers. A budget deficit has meant cutbacks in social services. On a more personal note, his daughter was arrested on suspicion of prescription drug fraud.

Yet barring a political cataclysm, the president’s younger brother seems on course for reelection as Florida’s governor, many analysts say. “He is still very strong,” said Susan MacManus, professor of political science at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “His poll numbers have not plummeted in spite of a lot of things that might have brought down a weaker candidate.”

That’s excellent news for Republicans, not just because it means keeping a key statehouse in GOP hands, but also because the Sunshine State is crucial to their presidential reelection strategy two years from now.

Tonight, Florida Democrats are hoping a televised debate in suburban West Palm Beach among their party’s candidates for governor will help bring about a turnaround in voter sentiment.

Former Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, Miami state Sen. Daryl Jones and Bill McBride, a Tampa lawyer and Vietnam War veteran, are in a three-way contest for their party’s Sept. 10 primary. The well-known Reno is the clear front-runner, although McBride has been making gains. Jones, a former Air Force fighter pilot, is the first African American ever to seek Florida’s governorship.

“There is a greater sense of vulnerability with Jeb in the last three or four weeks than there has been in some time,” said Bob Poe, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. “His negatives have gone up. This situation is still very fluid. We have seen the Bush family be very consistent in how they allow their leads to evaporate.”

There are other wild cards in Florida’s political life, including the notorious fickleness of this fast-growing state’s electorate. In the decade ending in 2000, voter rolls swelled by more than 2 1/2 million, with many newcomers feeling no particular allegiance to any party. Also, Floridians traditionally don’t pay much attention to politics until after Labor Day, which may mean tonight’s debate among Democrats will generate scant interest among the general public.

So far, Bush has well outpaced all three Democrats in fund-raising, stockpiling $5.9 million. What’s more, the 49-year-old incumbent can count on millions of dollars in aid from the state GOP, which will pay most of his campaign expenses. In comparison, McBride so far has raised $1.9 million, and Reno $1.6 million.

“All else being equal, I think simply having a great deal more money can be important,” said Joan Carver, professor emeritus of political science at Jacksonville University. “Florida is such a big state and it has so many media markets that to reach the votes you need to advertise and be in various parts of the state, which costs a lot of money.”

However, once the Democrats know who their standard-bearer will be, millions of dollars in additional campaign funds are expected to flood in from across the United States. Many Democrats have not forgotten that it was Florida that cost them the 2000 presidential election, and they blame the younger Bush for helping engineer his brother’s win.

“The Democrats who are hesitant about Reno now, all that will change when she wins the nomination,” said MacManus, of the University of South Florida. “Because the choice will be her vs. Bush, and that’s an easy choice for them.”

A statewide poll in June by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research showed the governor with a wide lead in hypothetical head-to-head matchups with Reno, McBride and Jones, defeating them by margins of 57% to 35%, 55% to 29% and 62% to 32%, respectively.

The survey also found that Bush had continuing, potent cross-party appeal, and that the Republican, who is unopposed for his party’s nomination, would snatch 29% of Florida Democrats’ votes from Reno in a one-on-one competition.

Even if many Floridians disagree with Bush’s stance on a given issue, numerous political science studies have shown that when making their choice for governor, Americans are willing to ignore differences on specifics and cast their ballots for the man or woman they believe will make the strongest chief executive of their state.

“People choose the whole persona,” MacManus said. “Bush is sort of known as a policy person and a bold man who is ready to tackle issues, even if they are controversial. People know that under him, Florida is just not sitting on the status quo.”

Democrats, however, assert that Bush’s image has been badly eroded by months of news reports about errors and oversights in Florida’s Department of Children & Families, which lost a 5-year-old Miami girl in its charge. The agency’s director resigned this month, but the man Bush has nominated to take the job, Jerry Regier of Oklahoma, immediately became embroiled in controversy himself because of his ties to a Christian fundamentalist group, the Coalition on Revival. Under Regier’s name, the coalition printed an essay disapproving of women who work and endorsing the spanking of children, even if it causes bruises and welts.

“I think there has been a real shift in the last few weeks in terms of attitudes about this race,” Poe said. As proof that the Florida GOP is rattled, the Democratic Party official cited TV spots that the Bush campaign has already started to air that accuse Reno and McBride of dancing around the issues.

Todd Harris, communication director of the Bush campaign, replied that the Republicans were simply being prudent. “With Janet Reno, it’s tough to tell people something about her that they don’t already know,” Harris said. If McBride were to defeat Reno in an upset, “we don’t want to be in the position where it is mid-September and we are now running against someone who has just had two months of positive TV behind him and people have already formed their first impression.”

McBride, who still trails far behind Reno in surveys of Democratic voters, has won the endorsement of some labor unions and leading legislators of his party, who believe he would have a better chance of beating Bush in the Nov. 5 general election.

Reno has much greater name recognition and grass-roots support, but she also brings along a great deal of baggage from her service in the Clinton Cabinet and her problems with Parkinson’s disease. Reno’s decision as attorney general to send a young shipwreck survivor back to Cuba has made her a loathed figure among Cuban Americans, a major voting bloc in Florida.

Harris said he and Bush’s running mate, Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan, would be at tonight’s Democratic debate to give the GOP point of view to reporters and anyone else who wants to hear it. But he expected the event to draw little interest among ordinary Floridians.

“My guess is that it will probably be fairly boring,” Harris said. “You could play audio tapes of it to insomniacs who weren’t responding well to drugs, and put them to sleep.”