The Red Pickup Tour

The Palm Beach post in a map displayed much of Janet Renos campaign itinerary. Just curious if any Freepers out there are interested in protesting Ms. Renos appearence in Boca Raton on Mar, 10. Any one got something in mind they wish to share or need help with?

Thanks for the flag! :)

From today's Palm Beach Post:

Reno hopes driving tour quiets doubters

By Brian Crowley, Palm Beach Post Staff
Writer
Sunday, February 24, 2002

Lawton Chiles walked. Bob Graham worked. Frank Mann rode a horse. Now, Florida political lore is getting a red pickup truck.

On Tuesday, Janet Reno slides behind the wheel of her 1999 red Ford Ranger, pulls away from the Alabama line and begins a homespun 15-day statewide tour that she hopes will jump-start her campaign and eventually allow her to park at the Governor's Mansion.

Much is riding on the trip.

If all goes well, the exhaustive truck drive and handshaking trip could put to rest concerns about Reno's health and showcase a Reno voters in North and Central Florida have never seen. Voters used to seeing her behind a podium defending actions taken by the Clinton administration would presumably get to see a more folksy native Floridian who understands their problems.

From its inception, Reno's campaign has been buffeted by questions from Democratic insiders who wonder aloud whether she carries too much political baggage to defeat incumbent Republican Gov. Jeb Bush in November.

... When she steps on the gas, Reno will begin driving across the Florida Panhandle, a region that even some of her strongest supporters believe will be so hostile to her candidacy that it will shrink her chances of defeating Bush should she become the nominee.

Reno will also traverse the I-4 corridor from Daytona Beach to Tampa, home to many of the state's critical swing voters. She will go to Republican-rich Southwest Florida and to the Democratic gold mine -- Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

When the trip ends with a welcome-home rally at her Old Florida home in Kendall, Reno's campaign hopes that she will have captured the imagination of Democrats, convincing them that she can defeat Bush...

Campaign gimmicks have long been a treasured ploy for Florida politicians who need to get attention or change an image. In 1970, the late Gov. Lawton Chiles, then a little-known state lawmaker, put on his hiking boots and walked 1,033 miles all the way from the Alabama border town of Century to Key Largo in his campaign to win a U.S. Senate seat, incessantly chatting with people along the way. He won a stunning victory and was forever remembered as Walkin' Lawton.

Bob Graham, a state senator from a wealthy Dade County family, convinced voters he was an ordinary guy during his successful 1978 campaign for governor by doing 100 "work days." Graham worked at all kinds of jobs from longshoreman to waiter. Now a U.S. senator, Graham continues to do 12 work days every year.

In 1986, Fort Myers Sen. Frank Mann ran for governor riding a "dark horse," from Fort Myers to Tallahassee. By summer, he abandoned his campaign and became the running mate of Steve Pajcic. They announced their partnership astride white horses. Their four-legged campaign lost.

Two years ago, state Rep. Willie Logan of Opa-locka ran for the U.S. Senate by riding a Yamaha 1100 V Star motorcycle around the state. His two-wheeled campaign fizzled.

Even the red pickup has been done before. In 1994 in Tennessee, Fred Thompson, a well-known Republican attorney and movie actor, decided to run for the U.S. Senate. Wearing jeans and boots, Thompson leased a 1990 red Chevy pickup and drove throughout Tennessee, winning the race.

What worries Republicans and Reno's Democratic challengers is that while gimmicks sometimes fail, the best ones can take on a life all their own.

"If we run against her 10 times, we win nine," said a top adviser to Jeb Bush. "But if she becomes a rebel without a party who grabs everyone's imagination, you could have an image that's harder to overcome."

Grabbing the voters' imagination is not easy. Democrat Jimmy Carter was a little-known Georgia governor in 1976 when he ran for president as a small-town peanut farmer who would bring common sense to the White House. Voters loved it.

Twenty years later, Republican Lamar Alexander, a former Tennessee governor, donned red and black plaid shirts for his presidential campaign and tried the same folksy approach. He couldn't pull it off. Four years later, he tried again without the plaid, but voters had had enough.

Reno's campaign insists that her road trip is nothing more than the official launch of the campaign. But in their words is at least a hint of the high stakes.

"This trip will take the campaign to a whole new level," said Nicole Harburger, Reno's spokeswoman. "We're going to see the kind of grass-roots support that is really out there."

Most polls suggest that Reno can easily win the Democratic primary but would lose to Bush....

Outside Florida, Reno's campaign is getting national attention. News organizations from around the country are expected to tag along for parts of the red truck tour, creating a convoy of a press van, TV trucks and rental cars.....

Reno's campaign also hopes that the red truck tour will set aside concerns that Reno is not physically able to handle a tough campaign. Reno has had Parkinson's disease since 1995 and fainted last month during a speech in New York. Doctors say her Parkinson's does not affect her ability to work and that her fainting was not related to the disease. Reno simply got dehydrated, they said.

Since then, Reno has campaigned vigorously and traveled extensively.

"This trip," says Harburger, "is going to be a lot of fun."

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