Posted on 09/08/2001 3:21:22 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Reno says most Floridians agree with her on 'Elian case' Saturday, September 8, 2001
By CHELSEA J. CARTER, Associated Press
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Sounding like a candidate for political office, former Attorney General Janet Reno encouraged some 900 female lawyers Thursday to use the law and the courts to better the lot of women and children.
"We can make a difference," Reno, who is running for governor of Florida, told the California Women Lawyers dinner Thursday night at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel & Towers.
Particular attention, she said, needs to be paid to reducing domestic violence and reversing a trend that sees an increasing number of women being sent to prison.
The 63-year-old Democrat, who formally announced her candidacy on Tuesday, also touched on her campaign's primary themes of improving education, cleaning up the environment and protecting senior citizens.
She said she wants to see her home state's rivers and lakes returned to the condition they were in when she traversed them by canoe years ago.
But she also got into the race, Reno said, so Florida's schoolchildren could witness an election not marked by rancor, a reference to last year's bitter, partisan battle that saw President Bush barely edging Vice President Al Gore in a race critics challenged as being riddled with voter fraud.
Back in Florida, one of Reno's potential Democrat rivals for the party's nod in the gubernatorial race, U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, of Tampa, announced Friday that he was dropping his planned campaign.
"I have decided this particular course is not the right one at this time for me or my family," he said in a statement.
Davis, 43, a lawyer and a former state legislator, had opened a campaign account this summer, saying he intended to explore his prospects. He had hoped to announce his campaign for the Democratic nomination sometime after Labor Day.
Then Reno entered the race this week and instantly became the front-runner.
Reno is hoping to unseat Republican incumbent Jeb Bush, the president's brother.
She told The Associated Press shortly before her speech that she traveled across the country just days after announcing her candidacy because she had promised to appear at the function that is a part of the California State Bar's convention.
"I agreed to be here and I honor my commitments," said Reno, whose speech was delayed when she was besieged by autograph seekers.
In all, she received four standing ovations from the warmly receptive audience.
She responded by joking with audience members and poking fun at herself, noting how she had come to enjoy watching actor Will Ferrell impersonate her on "Saturday Night Live," even going on the NBC comedy show herself at one point.
"It reminded me all over again how important it is for us to laugh at ourselves," she said.
Her gubernatorial race could resurrect some of the controversies that dogged her during her years in the Clinton administration, including her approval of the assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993, in which scores of people, including children, were killed.
"Waco," she said when asked by an audience member what her toughest decision as attorney general was.
She told The Associated Press she didn't believe her decision to return Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez to his father last year would be held against her by voters.
"Most of the people in Florida, I think, support the position I took on the case of Elian," she said.
If a conservative takes advice from a liberal, that is a big mistake.
In order to defeat this strategy, the Cubans have to stay cool and not take the bait from this incredible freak of nature. This election will be won easily as long as Waco, her freakishness, and her unbelievably terrible performance as AG and Dade County prosecutor are the issues, not Elian.
The CANF should write an open letter to Reno asking her to stop making Elian a campaign issue and to be sensitive to the feelings of Cuban-Americans, not to slap them in the face with Elian every time she croaks out her campaign drivel.
Right, that's why she's race baiting the Cuban-Americans and trying to get them so pissed they become the issue instead of her.
These democraps are evil, master propagandists who will stop at nothing, including mind control, to take power.
The next time a reporter asks her about Elian, she should refuse to answer on the same grounds, as Lazaro Gonzalez currently has a lawsuit in progress in which she is one of the defendants.
Instead she spouts off how most Floridians agree with her. I have a real problem with that statement.
Her neighbors sure don't agree with her, yet they left her alone. Now she wants to rub it in our faces. I guess if you have tanks and swat teams to back you up you can say anything and not worry about the consequences.
Reno for Guv? Recall *this*
You've heard the blather- now look at the record...
...and pass this on--
--The WACO horror--
Waco producer: Weapons photos falsified
FBI, Delta Force, ATF, All fire Shots into Mt. Carmal killing children
-David T. Hardy: An Interview With American Gun Owners' Best Friend ( & Waco )--
WACO: The truth seeps out good info web page
More Waco links from The War Room:
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If she honestly THINKS that is the case, then she clearly is delusional and should be allowed to run.
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