- ORLANDO -- Gov. Jeb Bush's
usually well-disciplined campaign still is trying to grapple with what
may be the most serious mistake of the campaign -- his own words.
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- Caught on tape talking about "devious plans"
to undermine a state amendment requiring smaller public school class sizes
and "juicy details" about an alleged lesbian relationship between
two former caregivers of missing Miami child Rilya Wilson, Bush tried Saturday
to change the subject, with little effect.
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- Now, some of Bush's closest advisers privately are worried
that Bush may have done serious damage to his campaign at a time when his
race against Tampa lawyer Bill McBride is perilously close.
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- Bush's strategists say they can only hope that news reports
about his conversation last week with five conservative Panhandle lawmakers
quickly will fade from the front pages and evening news.
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- Bush didn't realize a reporter from Gannett Regional
Newspapers of Florida was present, taking notes and recording the conversation.
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- "If on Monday we're still talking about this, we
are going to have a problem," said a Bush adviser who asked not to
be identified.
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- Stay tuned, says the McBride campaign, which spent a
second day hammering Bush.
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- "What I say in private is the same thing I say to
you from this podium," McBride told 130 leaders of union groups in
Orlando.
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- His supporters could hardly contain their glee at Bush's
discomfort.
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- "I think the governor has made a very, very serious
mistake that he is going to have to answer for," said Sara Benedict,
an Orlando legal secretary. "I think what voters are seeing is the
real Jeb Bush -- someone who has little tolerance for people who don't
look like him or act like him."
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- Democratic party leaders said Bush's words could mark
a major turning point in the campaign.
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- "Jeb has handed over some huge ammunition,"
said Bob Poe, state Democratic Party chairman. "This is the kind of
thing that all of his money can't explain away."
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- A Republican Party strategist working with Bush did not
disagree, saying the governor's election team still was struggling with
the problem and was waiting for the nearly certain Democratic television
ads that will try to keep the issue fresh until the Nov. 5 election.
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- Poe would not speak specifically about future ads, but
McBride's campaign made it clear that Democrats will not let Bush off the
hook.
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- "This is an important issue, and people are getting
a chance to see the real Jeb Bush, and it's not very pretty," said
Tony Welch, a McBride spokesman.
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- Republicans plan to launch new attacks on McBride's record
as managing partner at Holland & Knight. News stories already have
explored McBride's record there where he is both credited with making it
one of the top U.S. law firms with generous pay and benefits for even the
most junior workers and criticized for letting the firm grow too fast resulting
in layoffs after he left.
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- Todd Harris, Bush's campaign spokesman, said the recent
controversy "is unfortunate for us more because of what it drowned
out more than anything else.
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- "We've been trying to talk about health care and
the fact that McBride does not have a plan. We had Democratic leaders who
are supporting us. But for a day everything was focused on something else."
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- Bush, who said he was being sarcastic with the "devious
plans" remark and that he didn't mean any disrespect when discussing
Rilya's caregivers, tried to shift the focus again Saturday.
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- Campaigning just a few miles from McBride in Orlando
with than 500 black political leaders, pastors, business owners and community
activists, Bush suggested that his opponent is out of touch with black
people and that McBride's pledge to dismantle Bush's education plan will
lead Florida back to its racist past.
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- "Who are the people that are going to be hurt most
by that?" Bush asked to applause. "Who are the people that are
going to have to go back to the old way where we have the bigotry of low
expectations -- the quiet bigotry? It's not the kind that you talk about
at refined cocktail receptions or chambers of commerce or in the Rotary
clubs. It's not talked about openly, but it is bigotry."
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- Bush, saying he's going to "fight the status quo,"
also took a swipe at the "doom and gloom people" who opposed
his dismantling of race-based preferences at universities, pointing out
that there hasn't been an exodus of minority students.
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- Meantime, he said, black businesses are reaping more
in state contracts, and he's appointed more African-Americans and women
so that his administration isn't "10 white guys who look like me and
dress like me."
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- The Rev. Harold Calvin Ray of Redemption Life Fellowship
in West Palm Beach nodded in agreement throughout the presentation. Ray
also praised the governor's faith-based initiative in government.
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- "When you go beyond the rhetoric against the governor,
you see that the platform matches the polices, which match the practices,"
Ray said. "He has been good for the African-American community."
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- Ray, who stopped short of endorsing the governor, said
he's not affiliated with a political party.
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- West Palm Beach developer and consultant Tony McCray
said he was thinking of switching from Democrat to Republican in part because
of Bush's leadership. McCray said that McBride, like the Democratic Party,
has taken blacks for granted.
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- "I haven't gotten one piece of literature from his
campaign," McCray said. "Nothing. To be honest, McBride scares
me. He's one of the good old boys."
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- McBride admits that he still has a lot of work to do
to win over black voters. Part of that process begins today when he visits
seven black churches in Miami-Dade County accompanied by the immensely
popular U.S. Rep. Carrie Meek who McBride has considered for his running
mate.
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- Recently McBride hired James Harris, who organized black
support for former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, whom McBride narrowly
defeated in the Democratic primary.
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- Harris, who has worked for Democratic U.S. Sens. Bob
Graham and Bill Nelson, is well-known among black voters.
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- McBride spent most of Saturday with two other groups
key to his campaign effort -- veterans and unions. He won the endorsement
of five labor unions and got a check for $400,000 for the Democratic Party
from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
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- "This is war, and I've been to war," said McBride,
a former Marine who fought in Vietnam, foreshadowing the weeks to come.
"I know how to fight, and I know how to fight hard."
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