Discipline Will Decide 2002 Governor Duel

The expected gubernatorial showdown between Gov. Jeb Bush and former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno will be nasty -- but don't expect the nastiness to come from the candidates themselves.

Reno herself tried to set the tone for the campaign at an out-of-state engagement this week after announcing her candidacy. When a questioner bid Reno luck in her run against "that oaf in Florida,'' Reno responded, ''I'm going to have to chide you for that. We've got to get into better descriptions. We can disagree about the issues," according to an AP report.

When Bush was asked about Reno's entrance into the race, his spokeswoman dodged the question and said Bush was focused on governing.

Don't let the folksy front fool you. Democratic and Republican Party operatives like GOP chairman Al Cardenas and his Democratic counterpart Bob Poe will be issuing dueling press releases and launching incendiary comments on a daily basis next summer. Both are master spinmeisters who view the world through toilet paper rolls of partisan blindness.

That's why the parties will be albatrosses to both candidates. While I still believe Reno's candidacy virtually assures a Bush reelection, it is zealots in his own party who may be the biggest barriers to victory.

Florida's electorate is best characterized by liberal big city blocs, conservative New Florida enclaves and a huge mushy middle of independents, lapsed liberals and undecideds. If Bush wins it will be because he recreated the coalition of conservatives and mushy middlers he attracted in 1998.

Vitriolic barbs against Reno on topics such as Elian Gonzalez, Waco and most likely her service as Bill Clinton's attorney general only serve to lather up the froth of the faithful. Attacking Reno as a Clintonite ignores the fact the former president won Florida in 1996 and his vice president came within a hanging chad of carrying the state in 2000.

Bush could win on his record. He remains popular despite glaring missteps with minorities, the education community and state workers. His challenge will be to silence stray GOP attack dogs and the undisciplined within his own campaign who can't resist taking one last swipe at their archenemy Clinton. If Bush allows the election to be a referendum on Clinton, he could blow a sure thing.

That said, Reno's attempts to run a civil campaign will be sabotaged by zealots within her own party, with whom she has a shaky relationship. Democratic leaders lobbied her not to run, anticipating an assault on her Clintonian past. Nonetheless, should she emerge as the nominee, the party will launch its own negative campaign against Bush. They hope to marshal minority resentment of Bush even while Reno tries to run as a centrist.

While she tries to focus on issues like education, party activists will attempt to make the election a redo of the November 2000 election.

If truth is the first casualty of war, discipline is the first casualty of politics. The winner in 2002 may be the candidate who gets his or her zealots to bite their tongues best.

You can e-mail Brian Gleason at gleason@sun-herald.com or call him at 255-8133.

Much of his column could be applied to almost any contested election.

I'm afraid that my living in a conservative area keeps me from awareness of the potential Reno voters. Could those of you who are aware of the Florida Dem voter comment on their Reno support? If she were to win, would that be because of actual voters or would that be voter fraud?

Look for Al The Fraud and JJ Jackasson to come down to FL and get a 103% black turnout.

It seems likely that most of the folks who voted for Gore will vote for Reno. So one thing Jeb Bush is going to have to do is cut back on the huge scale of election fraud we saw last time around.

Otherwise, you will be...yes: Conservatives. (And we ALL know how bad that is: Maybe Sally Quinn won't invite you to her parties.) Gestapo Muller decides to run for Mayor of Tel-Aviv as a Democrat? Talk about the holocaust, I say.

4 posted on 09/07/2001 4:27:31 PM PDT by Man of the Right (The column is typical left drivel: you musn't attack us on the issues we're most vulnerable.)

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