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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 10/09/2002 6:30:54 AM PDT by windchime
ELECTION 2002
Bush, McBride truce is fragile By Mark Silva Sentinel Political Editor
October 9, 2002
TALLAHASSEE -- On the television screen, the stage that matters most in the political arena, Gov. Jeb Bush and rival Bill McBride have reached an uneasy truce.
Since last month's primary election, the two candidates have waged a costly TV campaign that airs only positive pictures of themselves. This standoff, however, is unlikely to last.
If McBride hopes to overcome Bush's narrow lead, he must engage the governor, experts say. With four weeks left until the election, this couple's engagement could get ugly.
"It's a close race, and that guarantees that both candidates go negative to a certain degree," said Larry Sabato, political scientist at the University of Virginia. "McBride has to tell people why Bush must be replaced, and Bush has to tell people why McBride is not be a good replacement."
Bush, who contends he can win a "positive" campaign, likely will wait for McBride to fire first. The Republican Party pummeled McBride with attack ads during the Democratic primary, a strategy that may have served mainly to build up McBride as Bush's most fearsome rival.
Mike Murphy, Bush's Virginia-based media consultant, said the governor is ready to run strictly on his own record.
"If we run all positive ads and McBride and his allies and 'Big Labor' all run positive ads, Jeb wins," Murphy said. "I think the campaign that is going to play the negative game in the last 30 days is McBride's."
David Doak, McBride's Washington-based media adviser, said the governor could be gun-shy.
"They may have been a little bit spooked by how effective we were at responding to them in the primary," Doak said. "We have other things that will be effective rebuttals, and they are aware of that, and that is why they are running positive."
McBride, who never ruffled rival Janet Reno in the Democratic primary, maintains he won't turn negative now. Yet the Tampa-area attorney allows that disagreements on issues, such as education, are fair game for any ad campaign.
"We have always contemplated not a negative campaign, but a certain sharpness in debating what this election is about," Doak said. "We are critical of Bush's record on education. I don't consider that to be a negative campaign."
Bush unwittingly handed Democrats fresh fodder for an issue-grounded attack with a stealth tape recording made by a reporter of the governor discussing a proposed constitutional amendment for small classes in public schools.
"I've got a couple of devious plans, if this thing passes," the governor said during a meeting with legislators in his office last week. He insisted later he was speaking "sarcastically."
McBride and allies have replayed those words on the campaign trail, and the words -- if not the recording itself -- could end up in a 30-second TV spot.
McBride offers Republicans openings for attacks, too. The Bush campaign has worked at portraying McBride as vague on most issues and someone who says different things to different crowds.
Its newest ammunition is a speech McBride made at the White House, joining President Clinton at a "Call to Action" for attorneys to work for social causes without pay. McBride, then-managing partner of Florida's largest law firm, spoke of Holland & Knight's commitment to pro bono work.
"I live in a poor area of my state," McBride said in the White House in July 1999. "The only time many of my neighbors see a lawyer is when the lawyer is representing the mobile-home park owner evicting them or taking their car because of a defaulted title loan charging 80 percent interest."
McBride lives in a rural section of Hillsborough County, where many live in poverty. However, the closest neighbors to his $550,000 lakefront home on $370,000 of grove land have palatial homes of their own. His law firm also represented the high-interest pay-day loan industry in a legislative battle.
All of this -- Bush's "devious plans" and McBride's life "in a poor area" -- offers potential material for media wizards who can make candidates eat their words.
The first axiom of any campaign is that no attack passes without response.
"I think people will be disappointed if Bill McBride wants to play games with tape recordings that people have had a good chuckle over," Murphy warned. "You can't swing a dead cat in Bill McBride's neighborhood and not hit a million-dollar house."
In a state of 16 million, TV ads can turn an election. Since McBride won the Democratic nomination, the GOP has aired ads promoting Bush's commitment to education and seniors, as well as one telling how the governor secured a traffic light for a small-town school.
The Democratic Party is sponsoring ads telling the life story of a once-unknown McBride, a Marine combat veteran who put himself through school.
It is nearing time for a change in TV "traffic," said J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, a Republican strategist from winning and losing gubernatorial campaigns.
"If, one week from now, you and I are still watching Bill McBride storm the beaches of Iwo Jima and Jeb Bush installing traffic lights for schoolchildren, McBride is in a lot of trouble," saidStipanovich.
"When he pulls the trigger, the Republicans are going to fall on him like rabbits and dogs, and they have a lot more resources than he does," he says. "If he doesn't [pull the trigger], he loses."
Mark Silva can be reached at msilva@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5034.
Copyright © 2002, Orlando Sentinel
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
'a speech McBride made at the White House, joining President Clinton........."I live in a poor area of my state," McBride said in the White House in July 1999. "The only time many of my neighbors see a lawyer is when the lawyer is representing the mobile-home park owner evicting them or taking their car because of a defaulted title loan charging 80 percent interest."
YEAH, RIGHT! MCBRIDE/MCCAULIFFE/CLINTON
The 'stealth' nature of this recording sounds like something the McB camp would have liked to create.....or maybe they just got 'lucky'?
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