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Posted on 10/18/2004 7:00:51 AM PDT by no dems
Debate may prove decisive
With Florida's contentious U.S. Senate race deadlocked, the candidates appear together for the first time tonight in a televised debate.
BY BETH REINHARD AND MARC CAPUTO
breinhard@herald.com
While tonight's televised debate between Florida's U.S. Senate nominees probably won't be spoofed on Saturday Night Live or The Daily Show, it will feature the trappings of a nationally watched, highly competitive contest.
NBC's Tim Russert will moderate the hourlong match-up between Democrat Betty Castor and Republican Mel Martinez in Tampa. Fox News, CNN and C-SPAN will be among the 19 satellite trucks. An estimated 1.5 million viewers will watch the live event.
A Mason-Dixon poll released Sunday showed Castor and Martinez tied at 45 percent, with only 9 percent of voters undecided. In such a neck-and-neck contest, any zingers or flubs could make a difference in who goes to bed the winner on Nov. 2 -- and may help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate.
''Undecided voters will make an appointment to tune in so they can make up their minds,'' said Forrest Carr, news director at WFLA-TV in Tampa. ``It could be a watershed event.''
That certainly was true of Russert's last Florida debate, in 2002: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride deflated under Russert's tough questions about the cost of reducing class sizes.
Tonight's debate will be Russert's sixth Florida contest since 1994.
''It has become sort of a rite of passage for office seekers to get their mettle tested by Tim Russert,'' Carr said. ``His trademark is that he doesn't let candidates get away with evasive answers. He pins them down.''
When Martinez initially resisted participating in a debate with Russert, critics said he was trying to avoid the network newsman's dogged style. Martinez eventually relented. A second debate will be held Oct. 25 in Miami. Martinez did not agree to a proposed Oct. 28 forum.
Tonight, he and Castor will have 90 seconds to answer each question and one minute for rebuttals. Russert can throw out follow-up questions and allow for one-minute responses.
The candidates' ties to a former University of South Florida professor charged with terrorist activity is certain to come up. The issue has dominated their campaign commercials.
Martinez says Castor should have condemned and fired Professor Sami al-Arian when she was university president in the 1990s and the first suspicions arose that al-Arian might be connected to terrorists. Castor retorts that if al-Arian had been such a threat, the professor shouldn't have been allowed to campaign with George W. Bush in 2000, when Martinez headed Bush's Florida campaign. Al-Arian was later invited to the White House.
PRO & CON
A new Martinez ad that began airing Friday features Gov. Jeb Bush denouncing Castor. Outgoing Sen. Bob Graham and former state university Chancellor Charlie Reed defended her in a Sunday conference call with reporters.
Tonight, the challenge will be for the candidates to explain their involvement -- or lack of -- with al-Arian in the brief time they are allocated.
At first, pollsters and pundits said Martinez's hard-hitting ads put Castor on the defensive and gave him a slight edge in the polls.
But his attacks -- coupled with effective ads from Castor and her proxies -- might have backfired, according to the Mason-Dixon poll of 625 registered voters. It has an error margin of 4 percentage points.
In two weeks, Martinez's unfavorable ratings climbed 7 percentage points and his favorable ratings dropped 5. Castor's unfavorables fell 2 percent and her favorables jumped by 3. That eliminated Martinez's previous 46-41 lead.
The numbers are no surprise to Roger Stone, a veteran political operative whose experience ranges from the Nixon White House to presidential hopeful Al Sharpton's campaign.
''Mel has to stay on the offensive without looking aggressive -- otherwise, it looks like he's beating up on a woman. And that's never helpful,'' Stone said.
His advice for Castor: Be aggressive.
''She needs to go after him,'' Stone said. 'She needs to ask him something like: `How come you, as a member of Bush's Cabinet, sat silent when the president blocked prescription drugs from Canada? Thanks to you, thousands of seniors can't get prescription drugs.' ''
Martinez, Bush's housing secretary until he resigned to run for the Senate, supports the administration's opposition to drug importation until health officials guarantee it's safe. He also agrees with the Bush plan that added prescription drug benefits to Medicare, but now says he opposes the law's ban on negotiating bulk drug purchases.
Another debate-worthy issue: embryonic stem-cell research. Martinez, an abortion foe, opposes spending tax money on the research because he says it destroys nascent human life. Castor, reflecting public opinion, wants to expand the research.
In Martinez's favor: his life story, charm and ethnicity.
Martinez, 57, is a charismatic speaker who recounts a compelling tale about fleeing Fidel Castro as a boy and then rising to become the federal housing secretary. The new poll shows his commanding lead among Hispanics, many of whom tend to vote Democratic.
His spokeswoman, Jennifer Coxe, said Martinez also appeals to women -- another traditional Democratic voting bloc -- and will be comfortable talking about tax cuts and his White House experience in tonight's forum.
Castor will be in the hot seat, she said.
`SHE CAN'T HIDE'
''She won't be able to hide,'' Coxe said. ``She'll finally have to answer the questions about what happened with al-Arian.''
Castor, 63, was the first woman to serve in the Florida Cabinet, as commissioner of education. A more experienced politician than Martinez, she won't have any trouble asserting herself, predicted her spokesman, Dan McLaughlin.
''She looks like my grandmother, but boy oh boy, can she be tough, and people will see that,'' he said.
Unlike the presidential debates, where every detail from the temperature of the room to where the candidates' families sit is painstakingly negotiated, the Tampa television station set up the rules. Martinez did ask that they stand at podiums instead of sit at a table.
Castor's campaign said Martinez insisted on standing because he towers over his petite rival. Martinez's campaign said it was to spare the candidate's bad back.
In the Republican primary debates, his staffers twice complained about the small seat sizes, which gave Martinez a gangly, bunched-up appearance.
Another lesson learned during the primary season involved the use of handheld computers.
After a Democratic debate in August, Congressman Peter Deutsch acknowledged that he got messages from his political consultant via BlackBerry. Such devices will be banned from tonight's event.
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