Word: nelsons
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...news for Republicans now? George W. Bush is trailing Al Gore by 8 points in a recent statewide poll. And polls show McCollum trailing his Democratic opponent, Florida insurance commissioner Bill Nelson, by 11 points in the Senate race. McCollum, 56, whose role as a prosecutor in President Clinton's impeachment trial sharpened his image as a partisan pit bull, is barnstorming Jacksonville homeless shelters and African-American churches in his Orlando district insisting that the more moderate conservative "is who I really am." Panic hasn't set in yet; but Nelson bets that "this is where the Republican jihad...
Florida, where Gore was probably best known for his Elian Gonzalez gaffe, is in play after all. At the heart of the struggle is the McCollum-Nelson contest. It could determine nothing less than whether Democrats can thwart Republican hegemony in a burgeoning, bellwether state that has the nation's fourth largest number of electoral votes (25) and help Gore pull off a coup against the Bush dynasty that might tip the presidential race...
...question is how Nelson and the tropical Dems got to be competitive at all this year. Given that Florida is a demographic postcard of 21st century America-- "More a crowd than a community," state Democratic leader Buddy MacKay once quipped--the answer says a lot about where the nation's politics is headed. Florida has a long tradition of diffusing power among its chaotic grid of ethnic and social groups, making its voters perhaps the country's most pragmatic--the first hypercentrist electorate. Jeb Bush found that out when he ran an ideological campaign in 1994 and lost, then...
...McCollum, a former Navy lawyer, says Nelson "is painting me as something I'm not. I am a moderate, Jeb Bush-Connie Mack Republican," he says, "and I couldn't have been elected to the House 10 times in Florida if I wasn't." But state G.O.P. leaders privately concede that McCollum was not the center-right candidate Jeb Bush had hoped for. Still, though his record is inked with fights against the Brady gun-control bills, McCollum has a lesser-known reputation as a bipartisan legislator, working with Florida's Democratic Senator Bob Graham to fund major new antidrug...
...Expect this one to get nasty. McCollum is already painting Nelson as a "Clinton clone," and pols who have faced Nelson before insist that he "likes close fighting with a dull knife," says a G.O.P. leader. Both candidates estimate they'll need more than $10 million to win--especially Nelson, who recently jetted around the peninsula with Clinton in Air Force One. Democratic insiders say Clinton has a keen interest in this race--namely, revenge against McCollum--which means McCollum may be the only politician this year to have a bigger Clinton problem than Al Gore...