Posted on 02/22/2002 9:08:53 AM PST by Jean S
MIAMI -- Janet Reno is about to set out in her red pickup truck on a 15-day, 600-mile Reno-for-governor swing across Florida just weeks after a fainting spell raised new questions about her health.
Reno, 63, will start her tour Tuesday in Florida's Panhandle and plans to drive south to Miami. The former attorney general will split the driving with her younger brother, Mark, a carpenter and tugboat captain.
The Democrat talked about making such a trip when she announced her bid last fall to unseat Republican Gov. Jeb Bush. But recent concerns about her health are likely to draw more attention to the trek.
Reno, who shakes visibly because of Parkinson's disease, fainted Jan. 31 during a speech in Rochester, N.Y., adding to concerns about her ability to deal with the rigors of the campaign and the governor's job itself.
She recovered quickly from the fall, and doctors have said they doubt the fainting spell had anything to do with her Parkinson's. She has said she feels good and is "gung-ho" about the campaign.
"Like most people, Janet Reno trusts her doctors, and her doctors have told her that she is more than up to the task of running for governor and serving for eight years," spokeswoman Nicole Harburger said Friday.
Political observers and analysts have noted that Reno's collapse raised another issue that voters may use to judge her.
"She now has a real battle for the nomination," said Charles Billings, political science professor at Florida State University. "The issues that are underneath the election are not the national policy issues when she was attorney general," such as the Elian Gonzalez custody fight and the Waco raid.
State Democratic Party Chairman Bob Poe said Reno's tour could put the health concerns to rest.
"She has kept up a grueling campaign schedule both before her fainting spell and after," he said. "Janet's trying to show that she can get out there into places people think might be hostile territory for her, and that she has broad appeal."
The trip is drawing comparisons to the famous trek of the late Gov. Lawton Chiles, nicknamed "Walkin' Lawton" for the 1,033-mile hike that helped him win a Senate seat in 1970.
"In a lot of ways Janet Reno is like Lawton Chiles," said Joe Geller, a Democratic Party activist in Miami. "She's a Florida native and she knows the old Florida, the natural beauty of Florida. She's spent a lot of her life exploring the less well-traveled areas."
Reno is up against lawyer Bill McBride, state Rep. Lois Frankel and state Sen. Daryl Jones for a chance to face Bush, who is seeking to become the first Republican governor to be re-elected in Florida.
A January poll found that Reno easily would win the Democratic primary, but that Bush would handily win re-election against any Democrat.
McBride recently won the endorsement of the powerful state teachers union and holds a lead in fund-raising over Reno.
"Bill meets with everyday voters every day on the campaign trail. We don't need a specific gimmick," spokeswoman Robin Rorapaugh said.
Yeah. Lawton Chiles is DEAD!
There's enough material in this one paragraph to supply 10 comics, 15 talk-show hosts and a hunnert conservatives with wtticisms, quips n' jokes until it drives off the end of the pier at Key West.
Ol' Shakey must really weave down the road to only cover 40 miles a day....
bulldawg
Every voter in Florida ought to make it his or her business to remove as many of these IDIOTS as the law allows, each election, until they are ALL gone!
Why stop in Miami? I'll send her $50.00 for gas and she can go back home to Cuba.
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