Florida Will Again Be Presidential Battleground in 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla -- President Bush's re-election campaign trained more than 2,000 volunteers to work in Florida to avoid a photo finish like the one in 2000.

The grass roots campaign, perhaps unprecedented in Florida, eventually is expected to include about 7,000 paid and volunteer organizers to get out the Republican vote in the state this fall, the St. Petersburg Times reported Sunday.

The Bush campaign is already setting up phone banks to try and reach thousands of swing voters to win Florida's 27 electoral votes in November, and expects to register more than 75,000 new Republican voters in Florida before Election Day.

"You're going to see the greatest grass roots undertaking by the Republican Party in modern political history," said Ralph Reed, chief of the Bush-Cheney campaign in the Southeast.

Republicans say they learned in 2000 that Republican domination of state politics and having the president's brother as governor isn't enough. Nor is the fund-raising advantage the party enjoys if Republicans and swing voters don't vote for the GOP candidate.

"The election of 2000 was kind of an eye-opener for us," said Al Austin, a Tampa developer and the Republican state finance chairman. "We were a little complacent and now we're re-emphasizing grass roots organizing. You're going to see a major, major difference in the voter turnout we're going to have."

Republicans are able to concentrate on Florida and other battleground states while Democrats battle for important - but relatively small - states that will vote first, New Hampshire and Iowa.

"It gives us the opportunity to start organizing now for the full-on general effort without having to worry about how the campaign is doing in early primary states," said Brett Doster, chief of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida.

Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox acknowledged the Republican advantage in early organization, but said the Democratic nominee likely will be decided by early March.

"We're talking just 60 days, and then you'll see us start to mobilize," said Maddox.

President Bush will likely visit the state often. He is expected to be in Florida this week for a fund-raiser on Thursday in Palm Beach.

In 2000, with Gov. Jeb Bush leading his brother's campaign effort, Bush was expected to win more easily in Florida. But voter turnout efforts by Democrats made it razor-close, with Al Gore losing Florida by just 537 votes in a contested election.

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg	Freepers/Avg	Monthlies
1	California	$1,298.00	31	$41.87	1,834	$0.71	$1,452.56	96

Here's a question to consider - suppose they gave an election and NO ONE showed up?

With Bush signing away my free speech rights with CFR and now wanting to legitimize millions of additional illegals in the country, I don't believe that he has earned my vote. Clearly, he takes the conservative base for granted and is busy pandering to any segment that he thinks may garner him more votes.

So, what if we all stay home on election day? If we don't cast our votes we will throw this country into a Constitutional crisis like we have never seen before. The Founding Fathers never considered that citizens would withhold their votes.

But, what if we do?

Freepers who live in FL contact your local county to be a poll watcher! we need people in the miami, broward, and Palm Beach counties.

We especially need people to watch the nursing homes. It is suspected that thousands, if not millions of votes are cast by people who don't have a clue who their relatives are, or what state they are in, much less who the candidates are for president.

A letter to "Dear Abby" from a former employee at a nursing home, expressed her concern when the "league of women voters" made their annual visit to "help" residents vote. She claimed to be a witness to the women laughing after "assisting" a mentally incapacitated patient "vote" for the party he had been against all his life.

The biggest shock and panic the Democrats experienced in the 2000 election was when irate "broken glass" Conservatives/Republicans began showing up at the locations where votes were being stolen/"counted" to observe the proceedings. The Democrats had never encountered anything like it in recent history and it spooked them greatly.

Now it's 2004 and Conservatives/Republicans have worked hard to identify the "cogs" in the Democrat voter fraud machine and are ready to mobilize at a moment's notice.

They won't know what hit them this year.

We can also now look to support from the media. Steve Kane and Brian Craig on 610AM in SoFlo are just two of the heroes who have contributed to "getting the word out" to SoFlo conservatives on the air and help us keep on top of Democrat corruption in SoFlo. They are modern versions of Paul Revere and have lead the way in taking the battle to the enemy.

The Democrats are delusional if they think they can play the same games they tried in 2000. The line has been drawn and we are just waiting, begging for them to cross it.

With Bush signing away my free speech rights with CFR and now wanting to legitimize millions of additional illegals in the country, I don't believe that he has earned my vote.

You are a simpleton if you think someone who agrees 100% with you or any of us here can be elected President of this wonderful and complex nation.

I completely agree that Bush is wrong, wrong, wrong on CFR, immigration, medicare reform, and many other issues. I wish he loved Liberty and the Constitution as much as we do. But he doesn't.

I also thank God every night when I say my prayers that he is our President and not one of the possible alternatives.

If you are indifferent to whether George Bush or Howard Dean is President, you need help.

IMVHO.

Thanks for your kind and thoughtful post. Bush loves guys like you. He knows he can give you the shaft, hand the keys to the candy store to someone else right in front of you and you'll still kiss his feet.

When freedom and liberty are the hallmarks of a country NOT the US, it's the programmed automatons such as yourself we can thank.

I don't expect 100% agreement with every politician. I also don't expect someone who claims to be a conservative to INTENTIONALLY conspire with the members of Congress to violate the rights guaranteed to us under the Constitution, anymore than I expect that same individual to give away the prize of citizenship to those whose first act in coming to this country is to display their disdain for our system of laws and justice by violating them.

In case you haven't figured it out, illegal immigration is bankrupting the social and safety net services that we have paid for. It is the reason our public schools have become a joke, our kids are dumber than ever, our taxes are higher and buying less and why our healthcare system is stretched beyond capacity. It is also the reason that baby boomers will be cheated out of their social security to make sure that illegals who worked in the US and went back home to retire will get full payment and baby boomers who worked all their lives paying into a system they knew was a fraud will get the shaft.

As for Dean, there is no guarantee that he will be the Dem nominee. Just because the press is in love with him doesn't mean that he is automatically anointed as the Dem nominee. There's a long time between now and July and lots can happen. Hold your hysteria in check until we see what the playing field actually looks like.

In the meantime, it might be helpful if you started brushing up on your Spanish so you can understand your new Congressman.

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Florida Will Again Be Presidential Battleground

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