Posted on 10/29/2002 7:59:03 AM PST by Cato Uticensis
JACKSONVILLE --
Shawn Raysin sports a Confederate battle flag license plate on the front of his Chevrolet Blazer, he's positive Florida needs no more gun laws, and he's uncomfortable with the notion of letting gays adopt children.
But he and his wife, Lorie, have two kids and worry the state is neglecting the public schools. They also believe Republican Gov. Jeb Bush cares too much for the rich.
So unlike many of their neighbors in rural Clay County, a Republican stronghold just south of Jacksonville, the Raysins plan to vote for Democrat Bill McBride next week.
"We've got to do something for working people, and it's been too long for the white collars," said Raysin, 30, a window glazer and member of the painters union. "We've got to do something for education."
"If someone's not voting for someone because they're pro-gay . . . they're making a big mistake," his wife added as they arrived at a McBride rally in downtown Jacksonville on Saturday.
"We've got to vote for issues that are more important."
Their North Florida neighbors don't seem to be listening.
One of the chief arguments Florida Democrats made for nominating McBride, rather than Janet Reno, for governor was McBride's perceived ability to attract conservative Democrats in North Florida.
But eight days before the Nov. 5 election, a new St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll shows McBride winning no more support in North Florida than Democrat Buddy MacKay did in 1998, when Bush easily beat MacKay statewide by 55 percent to 45 percent. The new poll shows McBride is favored by just 39 percent of the voters in a North Florida region covering 34 counties. Bush is favored by 53 percent, and 8 percent are undecided.
That's despite McBride's Vietnam-era military record, business experience, Lake County twang and opposition to more gun laws. Those are characteristics supporters felt sure would play well here.
In the past two governor's races, this North Florida region accounted for just less than 20 percent of the statewide vote.
The Democratic stronghold of South Florida, by contrast, accounted for 27 percent. But to win statewide a Democrat must do passably well in North Florida, as the late Gov. Lawton Chiles demonstrated in 1994 when he narrowly defeated Bush.
That year, Chiles won almost 46 percent of the vote in this region, 7 points and 95,000 votes better than MacKay in 1998.
On paper, Democrats would appear to be in better shape: Registered Democrats overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans in most of these counties, sometimes by a ratio of more than 5 to 1.
For example, in Lafayette County, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 3,546 to 484. But in 1998 the voters chose Bush over MacKay by a ratio of 2 to 1.
Like most of the formerly Solid South, white rural Democrats in Florida increasingly have been voting Republican in state and national elections. Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta and a leading expert on Southern voting trends, blames the alignment of national Democrats with gun control, big government, taxes, and soft support for the military.
In Southern states where Democrats have taken back the governor's mansion, including South Carolina, Alabama, Virginia and North Carolina, Black noted, they've done it with centrist, pro-business candidates.
McBride fits that model in many ways. He has combat experience as a Marine in Vietnam, which voters here say is a big asset. He has business credentials as the former head of Holland & Knight, the state's largest law firm. He also supports the death penalty.
"If he's seen as a moderate or centrist Democrat who is conservative on some issues and liberal on others, I think he has a chance," said Black, co-author of The Rise of Southern Republicanism.
"If he's perceived as a big-government liberal from South Florida, he doesn't have a chance."
That's certainly the image Republicans are peddling. Bush and the Republican Party are running radio ads in North Florida saying that McBride favors more gun control and opposes the death penalty -- both are untrue -- as well as TV ads warning McBride's plans for education will force the state to raise taxes, close prisons and skimp on law enforcement.
That forced McBride to take the defensive as soon as he arrived in North Florida for his final swing here Friday and Saturday. Rather than spend their time selling the notion that Bush is bad for education and bad for working people, Democrats had to reassure crowds they won't be bad for their wallets.
In Tallahassee, Panama City, Pensacola, Jacksonville and Lake City, McBride told crowds the governor's team is playing dirty. He said the only tax he supports is a new 50-cent-per-pack cigarette tax to help pay for education.
McBride also speaks often about his military service, and he frequently stages rallies at veterans memorials, like the one Saturday in Jacksonville.
But none of that matters to voters like Matt Dedinas, 33, an Army vet who stood outside a McBride rally in Panama City with a poster reading, "Take your socialism to Cuba." "I believe we need less government," said Dedinas, who wore a field jacket and Army hat. "Government is taking on a life of its own, and we need to let some of the air out."
At a barbecue and rally for the governor last week in tiny Callaway, near Panama City, Bush was introduced by James McCalister, the elected school superintendent of Bay County -- and a Democrat.
Also on stage with the governor was 82-year-old Robert Zummak, a Pearl Harbor survivor, and his stepson, Harold Bazzel, the longtime Democratic clerk of court in Bay County.
Bazzel recalled how his stepdad visited Honolulu last year and fell and broke his pelvis in two places, then suffered a heart attack. Desperate about what to do, Bazzel's relatives called the governor's office, who contacted Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Two weeks later, a team of Air Force medical experts escorted Zummak back to Florida.
"I will be forever indebted to you for what you did for him and for our family," Bazzel told Bush.
State Rep. Dwight Stansel, a Democrat and farmer who introduced McBride at a rally in Lake City Saturday, said he disagrees with McBride on several issues.
As soon as he heard about McBride's proposed cigarette tax, Stansel said, he called him and said, "you boys must be smoking marijuana if you think the Legislature is going to pass that."
The legislator also dislikes the class-size amendment, which McBride pitches every day, and says he and "most people up here are vehemently opposed to gay adoption," which McBride backs. Bush doesn't.
At the Jacksonville rally Saturday, many of the 300 people there predicted McBride would fare better than MacKay did in North Florida, but they acknowledged Bush had quite a head start. They included Richard Fagan, 82, a Marine in World War II who backs McBride.
"I don't know how he's going to do," Fagan said. "These people, they don't know how to do anything else but vote Republican."
-- Times staff writer Steve Bousquet contributed to this report.
Matt Dedinas AKA Cato Uticensis
But none of that matters to voters like Matt Dedinas, 33, an Army vet who stood outside a McBride rally in Panama City with a poster reading, "Take your socialism to Cuba." "I believe we need less government," said Dedinas, who wore a field jacket and Army hat. "Government is taking on a life of its own, and we need to let some of the air out."When I read that I thought he has to be a FReeper! :)
BUMP!
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