Mark Silva, Orlando Sentinel
Posted on 10/13/2002 1:50:50 PM PDT by floriduh voter
HUNT: Next on CAPITAL GANG, Beyond the Beltway looks at Jeb Bush's struggle for a second term as governor of Florida. Political reporter Mark Silva of "The Orlando Sentinel" joins us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: Welcome back.
What Republican Jeb Bush hoped would be an easy reelection against former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno became a tough race when lawyer Bill McBride defeated Reno for the Democratic nomination.
The latest nonpartisan poll by Insider Advantage shows a 5-point Bush advantage. At their most recent debate, the candidates debated Florida's economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JEB BUSH (R), FLORIDA: What we've done over the last four years is to advance towards the new economy. In fact, Florida now has the fifth-highest increase in high-wage, high-tech jobs in the country. And we lead the nation in job creation overall.
BILL MCBRIDE (D), FLORIDA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: It's almost as if the governor's on another planet. Well, I asked the people out there who feel like this economy is robust, vote with the governor. For those people who are having trouble and worried about their futures, come to -- come and help me with this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Joining us now from Tallahassee is Mark Silva, political editor for "The Orlando Sentinel." Mark, thanks for coming in.
MARK SILVA, "THE ORLANDO SENTINEL": Thank you.
HUNT: Mark, who has the momentum in this campaign, and why?
SILVA: Well, Bill McBride has had the momentum coming into the general election. He came from nowhere to defeat the Democrat whom everyone thought was unbeatable, Janet Reno. And he came out of the primary with a slim margin. His momentum has been slowed a little bit by the fact that it takes us a week to count votes in Florida, and also the first debate didn't go as well as he had hoped it would.
HUNT: Bob.
NOVAK: Mark, it has been reported widely that McBride's campaign was underwritten, and the creation of the teachers' union, who defeated him against Miss Reno. Is that a case? And if it's so, is that a, is that any kind of a handicap in the state of Florida?
SILVA: I don't think so. Unions don't do too well in this state. However, teachers are a little different breed. McBride allied early with the teachers' union. Back in January, he sought and won their endorsement. He developed a full-bore education plan and campaigned on it and has tried to make the campaign pretty much a referendum on education.
The union put a million and a half of their own money into his TV ads during the summertime. The Democratic Party has picked up the freight now. And he does have the alliance. And it is teachers, though, it's not the AFL-CIO that we're talking about here.
HUNT: Margaret.
CARLSON: Mark, George Bush has spent so much time in the state he could practically register to vote there, and Terry McAuliffe has poured in huge sums. It looks like a grudge match to those of us who aren't there. How's that affecting the race?
SILVA: Well, I think the races are independent of one another. I don't think the presidential race is being replayed here. The one thing that we do have in common is, is, we're starting to see Florida as a 50-50 state. The president will be back in Florida again this Thursday to raise some more money for his brother. It'll be the sixth trip to Florida this year, the 11th since the presidential election.
And the fact is, the president is helping his brother raise a lot of money here, and the Republicans will outspend the Democrats at least two to one on television in the final weeks.
But the races are really independent entities.
HUNT: Kate? O'BEIRNE: Mark, Governor Bush is above 50 in favorability ratings. Polls appear to show that he's tied with McBride among women voters, which is pretty good for a Republican. And large numbers of voters still don't know who McBride is.
As this race gets closer, as election day gets closer, is this race really less close than we -- some people in Washington think it is?
SILVA: No, I think it's pretty close. The McBride campaign believes it's within the margin of error, 3 percent. The race is close because of the dynamics of the state. At the same time, this race is about leadership, it's about integrity, it's about credibility and trust.
And both of these men have that. They're both -- as voters get to know McBride, they like him. He's got a strong personal image. The governor is favored and well liked.
So I think it is because of the -- by virtue of these two men's character and image, a close race. In television, however, the governor will overwhelm him and in the end turn out Hispanic voters for the Republicans, black voters for the Democrats. These will be the determining factors.
HUNT: Mark, let me just pick up on the money. I talked to one Republican who said actually that Bush has made a series of faux pas and arrogant, insensitive remarks he didn't know were going to be picked up, including some suggestions he was going to be duplicitous about state education funding.
But they said the money is going to be so big at the end -- you alluded to it earlier -- that money will clearly pull him through.
SILVA: Well, that's possible. They're waging an incredibly positive campaign at the moment. Since the Democratic primary, it's been an entirely positive television campaign. The governor believes he can win on those terms.
And when he starts airing 1,500, 2,000 massive points of television, he will overwhelm McBride on television. And unless McBride comes at him with an effective attack, the governor is likely to prevail in that kind of contest.
Now, we're waiting to see what McBride has, how tough he can get. He won't go personal, he'll keep it on the issues. But if he can make a compelling case, he has to provide a case for the governor not to be reelected.
NOVAK: In that connection, following up what, what you just mentioned, Mark, when we prepared the little introduction to our visit with you, the producers were looking for sound bites which were negative ads, and we couldn't find any negative ads since before the primary, we didn't find any negative ads about McBride. Has he run nothing negative since the primary?
SILVA: Nothing. When he got in this race a year ago, he had one guiding principle. He was going to run as positive a campaign as he could. Win or lose, he wanted to come out of it with his pride intact. He made a vow to not attack Janet Reno and studiously avoided any kind of personal affront to her, either in person in the debates, in the debate, or on television.
And he's still in the position of not having won -- run one single negative ad.
And when he does go negative, which he must, it'll be on the issues, it'll be on education, it'll be on the governor's lack of leadership, which, you know, that's fair game.
CARLSON: Mark, what's Janet Reno doing in the race now? Is she working hard? Is it a unified Democratic Party?
SILVA: It is unified, and she is working. She's called and asked repeatedly what else she can do. She's been taking McBride around to some of the churches in south Florida where she had a strong following among black voters. And she's trying to rekindle some of the energy that she enjoyed in the black community.
She's gone with him from church to church, she's working for him. And the Democratic Party is very much alive this time, and that's a strong force for McBride.
HUNT: All right, Mark, we have 10 seconds left. Who's going to win it?
SILVA: I think the odds are in favor of the governor. The president will be here to help him, administration this is a tough row for anyone.
HUNT: OK. Mark Silva, thanks so much for being with us.
THE GANG will be back with the outrages of the week.
I don't regularly watch CNN, but I was surfing at the moment that Mark Silva's name was announced regarding this article. His name rung a bell with me so I stayed there to hear what the man had to say about our Governor's race.
I take exception to MARGARET CARLSON'S characterization that President Bush has been spending lots of time in Florida. I haven't seen him, have you? The POTUS has been all over the USA and I believe he's just arriving in Florida. Carlson must have heard that from Carville over at Crossfire.
Pick out your favorite parts. FV
Mark Silva, Orlando Sentinel
Former First Lady Barbara Bush, Gov. Jeb Bush, X-41, First Lady Laura Bush and #43.
They're together - wouldn't be prudent at this juncture. LOL
I think this race is at the point where even if 100% of the undecideds went for McBride, he would still lose.
The key words are in this report are when Silva said
SILVA: /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
And when he (McBride) does go negative,
The key words are which ne must. The only time a candidate MUSTgo negative is when his opponent is over 50%. Ply when a candidate MUST reduce his opponents vote below 50% to win is it mandatory that he go negative. Positive spots draw the undecideds to a candidate they don't take away from the other side.
It is like this. If Bush is over 50 percent the only way for McBride to win is to get Bush below 50 percent. Some of the Bush support must be driven away from voting for Bush. The usual result of effective negative campaigns is the people that are the object of negative spots are effected by them to the extent they don't vote at all. They typically tell the pollsters they are undecided... but they don't vote on election day in that race. Issue ads will not keep voters away from the polls or stop them for voting for a candidate.
If you study what Rowe and Company helped Forrester do to the Torch you will see an almost perfect implementation of negative campaigning. They drove the normal democratic support away from the Torch. The polls were 45 to 32 and even 45 to 29. What was happening was the 21 or 22 percent of the normal democratic vote was not going to vote for anyone in the senate race in in New Jersey. That meant that Forrester was going to win 60 to 40 because about 40% of the normally democratic voters were not going to vote for a candidate in the senate race.
Negative campaigns have a history of failing where the object of the negative campaign is not a louse. Jeb is not a louse. So the thought behind McBride is to lose while making it as close as possible without going negative.
McBride is setting himself up to run for governor in 4 years. He knows that 2002 is over. If he were still trying for this year he would be leaking some sort of trumped up scandal on Jeb.
The fact that he is going to stay clean means that he is planning to run in 2006.
Well, Mark, you're half right (which isn't bad for a reporter). No, it's not the AFL-CIO, it's the FEA, the Florida branch of the NEA, which is wholly owned by the democrap party, but it's not the teachers! Most of Florida's teachers don't agree with the extreme leftist politics of the union, even though their dues support it.
The union put a million and a half of their own money into his TV ads during the summertime.
... in violation of campaign finance laws! This was "soft money", supposed to be used only for issues, not to promote candidates. The Florida Republican Party is challenging this in the courts.
Thanks for the post, FV!
How many people read the last paragraph of news articles? Jeb's campaign is smartly linking Bill McB to Bill Clinton, and not a moment too soon.
Speaking of Charlie Crist, Buddy Dyer dem for AG is in trouble over some legislation he tried to pass for Georgia-Pacific; this in the sptimes.com. They are hammering the dems this election cycle. Good reporters - usually very left wing but not this time around. Very curious.
Mafree, two friends of Ken are on Fox News Channel - it's 9:04 am est.
Jeb said this? Alright! The only way the far left Dems. win is to parade them as moderates. The presstitutes are shameless.
Good post, FV, and thank you for the sacrifice of watching CNN.
I changed their posters at the forum's name to the Orlando Satan Alls.
I'm so glad that Jeb is linking trial lawyer McBride to trial lawyer (disbarred) Clinton. LIARS STICK TOGETHER AND ALL THAT. I am looking forward to the radio debate tomorrow.
There will be a thread so that people not able to listen at 11:00 am tomorrow can read it later before the RNC releases it's talking points re: the debate tomorrow...We'll do our best before the real talking points come out. Of course JEB BUSH WILL WIN TOMORROW'S DEBATE TOO.
GOVERNOR BUSH said he wasn't surprised to see Clinton helping his opponent: "They're of the same ilk." Of his brother, he cheerfully added, "We're of the same ilk."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.