Why such assiduous courting? For McBride to topple Gov. Jeb Bush next Tuesday, he will likely have to succeed on two fronts: getting blacks to turn out in large numbers for him, and winning over moderate Cuban-Americans and other Latinos. The latest poll numbers aren’t encouraging. Overall, polls show the governor ahead of his challenger by three to eight points. A St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald poll this week showed McBride with a less-than-impressive 74 percent of the black vote, compared to Bush’s 17 percent. And a Mason-Dixon poll shows Bush leading McBride among all Hispanics, 63 to 32 percent.
The latest news to jolt the state–the arrival in Miami of a boatload of 235 illegal immigrants from Haiti who are being held at an INS detention center–may yet play into McBride’s hands. Bush has expressed sympathy for their plight, but civil-rights groups, already angry over the Bush Administration’s hard-line on immigration, want him to do more. On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek, whose Miami district includes Little Haiti, accosted the governor at a press conference and demanded that he call his brother to help free the Hatians from detention while their cases are considered by the INS. A new policy imposed by the Bush White House requires Haitian refugees–unlike those from other countries–to be detained indefinitely while their fate is determined. McBride immediately jumped into fray, calling Haitian radio stations and writing a letter to President Bush calling for a policy reversal. “These people are risking their lives, and that’s not something you do unless you’re facing some kind of oppression,” McBride told reporters. “It’s an intolerable situation to have one set of people not being treated the same as another.”
For the national parties, few races are as important as this one. The White House, apart from wanting to preserve little brother’s job, considers Florida essential to the president’s re-election in 2004. Democrats, keeping the flame of indignation over Indecision 2000 alive, would take vindictive delight in unseating Gov. Bush. As Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic national chairman, has said: “There won’t be anything as devastating to President Bush as his brother’s losing in Florida.” McAuliffe has committed money and campaign workers to help McBride, particularly in rallying blacks and Latinos. Both camps are flying in national luminaries. Bill Clinton, who recently held an hour-long conference call with several dozen black ministers in the state to champion McBride, will campaign with the challenger in black churches on Sunday. Al Gore may be on his way soon. On the other side, the cast is even more impressive: Ma and Pa Bush, Sen. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and W himself, who will make his twelfth trip to Florida this weekend. No state has been dazzled with as much star power.
Entering the home stretch, the conventional wisdom says that McBride’s campaign has stalled. Back when he beat Janet Reno in the primary, McBride was a media darling-a political neophyte who emerged from obscurity to become a potential giant-slayer. The campaign strategy was simple. McBride would make the race a referendum on Bush’s record on education-the issue that dominates voters’ minds. He would appeal to upcountry voters with his good ole boy charm and heroic past as a Vietnam vet. And he would shore up his downstate Democratic base of elderly and black voters. Things haven’t quite worked out that way. Bush has managed to transform the debate on education into one on taxes-which Bush says will have to be raised for McBride to pay for all the policies he proposes or supports. And polls show the governor with a commanding lead in northern and central Florida, and not trailing too far behind in South Florida.
Which makes the black and Latino vote all the more significant. Together, they comprise about one-quarter of registered voters, in roughly equal numbers, according to pollster Sergio Bendixen. “If blacks turn out at 10 percent [of all voters], you get one result,” says McBride spokesman Alan Stonecipher. But if they make up 15 percent-as they did in the 2000 election-they could help push McBride over the top. As for Hispanics, says Stonecipher, “that becomes a persuasion thing,” since Bush can count on most Cuban-American votes. The state’s changing demographics, however, could work in McBride’s favor. While 10 years ago, Cuban-Americans made up some 90 percent of all Hispanic voters in the state, says Bendixen, now they comprise only 60 to 70 percent. The remainder are Puerto Ricans and other Latinos who have flocked to the state’s midriff in recent years and mostly vote Democratic. One sign of change: Orange County, which includes Orlando and is a magnet for Puerto Ricans, voted Democratic in the 2000 presidential election for the first time in over 50 years.
Bush is keenly aware of these developments. He has courted Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in central Florida relentlessly-meeting with business leaders, venturing a salsa step or two at cultural festivals, recruiting Hispanic candidates. He’s comfortable with Latin culture: he married a Mexican, speaks Spanish, and worked in Latin America. In this campaign, Bush and the state GOP have spent over $1.4 million on hundreds of Spanish-language TV ads, according to a study by Adam Segal at Johns Hopkins University. At a campaign event in Bradenton on Monday, a Latina woman asked him, “Cuando vienes a Sarasota?” (“When are you coming to Sarasota?”). “Voy pronto,” he assured her (“I’m going soon”).
Not to be outdone, McBride has made a late push to mine Hispanic votes as well. His campaign ran its first Spanish-language ad last week and has opened Latino outreach offices in several central Florida counties. He’s visited Hispanic radio shows and gripped-and-grinned at Hispanic rallies. On Monday, his campaign inaugurated a new get-out-the-vote office in Hialeah, the heart of Republican Cuban America-though McBride, delayed in cutting a new ad in downtown Miami, was a no-show. Disgruntled reporters covering the event for Spanish-language networks like Univision were left asking whomever they could rope in: Isn’t it a little opportunistic to be opening an office in Hialeah nine days before the election? “It’s surprising,” says Susan MacManus of the University of South Florida, “that the outreach to the Hispanic community came so late in the campaign.”
Chalk it up to the finite resources of political campaigns. “Is there ever enough in politics?” said McBride, cruising in his green Ford Expedition towards his final campaign event on Sunday, his law-school roommate Buddy at the wheel. “I doubt it.” Despite the skepticism about his success in wooing black and Latino voters, “I think they’re gonna be energized,” said McBride in his deliberate drawl. “I think they’re gonna turn out pretty big.” In less than a week, he’ll find out if he was right.
