Janet Reno's Down-Home Approach
Minus Official Aloofness, Candidate Works Florida Voters on a Personal Level
Sunday, May 5, 2002 - JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Janet Reno is not the only
Democratic candidate in the race for Florida governor, but she is the only
one who has appeared on the "Tonight" show, attended Elton John's Oscar
party, and been mocked regularly on "Saturday Night Live" by a male
performer in drag.
Everywhere she goes, someone asks for her autograph. This may not win her
the Democratic
nomination in September for November battle against the formidable Gov. Jeb
Bush (R), but hers is nothing if not an unorthodox candidacy.
As a day in her deliberately folksy campaign shows, Reno, 63, is hardly
acting the diva. She is back to the persona she likes best, despite eight
high-profile years in Washington as President Bill Clinton's attorney
general: a down-home Florida gal.
"I first saw this area when we had a 1947 version of a recreation vehicle,"
she said at this event
sponsored by the Triangle Jax Democratic Caucus, a gay and lesbian group,
and the Arlington Democratic Club. "My father borrowed a horse cart from
somebody and we cleaned it out and scrubbed it up and put in bunk beds and
a 50-gallon drum of water with a spigot on it, and a kerosene stove. And we
took off across Florida, four kids and my parents. We ended up in this
region, and I have been in love with this state ever since!"
Surely no state governor's race in recent history has been more fraught
with built-in drama and lingering wounds. Many Democrats are still angry at
Gov. Bush for his role in the recount battle that helped put his brother in
the White House. Reno still carries the baggage of tenure as
attorney general, during which she oversaw the fiery confrontation with the
Branch Davidians near Waco, Tex., and infuriated Florida's Cuban community
by ordering force to take Elian Gonzales from his Miami relatives to return
him to his father in Cuba.
Her most threatening Democratic opponent, Tampa attorney Bill McBride, has
worked the institutional angle, racking up a number of key union
endorsements. Reno has spent her time cultivating voters in a highly
personal style.
Reno's most defining campaign moment has been her red-truck tour, a 15-day,
3,000-mile odyssey around the state this spring in her oft-mentioned 1999
Ford truck. Along the way, she stopped and chatted with thousands of
Floridians.
That's also what she was doing during a recent Jacksonville swing, which
included a law school luncheon, an interview at an African American
newspaper, and a speech at a studiedly funky coffeehouse called Fuel. She
was absolutely unhurried. She let question-and-answer periods go on longer
than scheduled, hung around to sign autographs, smiled her fixed,
almost-shy smile as people
snapped dozens of photographs. Her entourage consisted of her brother. "I'm
the wheel man," said Mark Reno, 60, a former boat captain. "I drive the
getaway car."
But whether this non-glitzy approach will fly in a modern-day Florida beset
with big-state problems of health care and public education, where most
people hail from somewhere else and fail to see the intrinsic value in
being a native Floridian, remains to be seen. While Reno has stressed her
distaste for negative politics and has vowed not to slam Bush, she manages
at each stop to get in
a few gloved punches at the hard-working, smart and controversial governor.
"Outside sits my red truck and I was going to get in it [after the Clinton
administration ended] and I was going to go around the country, but I
looked at what I saw happening in Florida and I didn't like it," she told
the coffeehouse crowd of several hundred. "And I felt that four more years
of Jeb Bush would change the face of Florida, would undermine the public
school system that I believe is the bedrock of democracy, and that it would
be a different state in four more years."
She also makes sure she deflects the question that is on everyone's mind:
How is her health? Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which is evidenced
in a trembling right hand, she drew worrisome headlines this year when she
fainted during a speech in upstate New York. "And then there's the matter
of my hand shaking. People come up to me and say, 'Oh my dear, are you
okay?' Well, the hand may shake, ladies and gentlemen, but it's not my hand
I want to use for Florida. It's my heart and my mind."
Earlier, at the Florida Coastal School of Law, "General" Reno, as she is
addressed, politely picked at the sliced turkey and potatoes at the head
table while a string of people came up to greet her. The program said she
was there for an Issues 2002 Forum: "Lawyers as Leaders." But politics was
bound to seep in. Dean Richard Hurt presented Reno with an office ornament,
three Lady Justices holding a globe, commenting that it was bound to wind
up displayed in the governor's office. And although there may have been a
little more legalese in this particular speech, Reno got down to her
campaign message as usual.
It is a message that makes ample use of phrases such as
"common-sense approach" and "problem-solving skills," that
revels in the natural beauty of this exotic state, that
dwells equally on wistful personal stories from her past
and vigorous plans for "building a foundation" for the
future.
"And let us not forget our environment," she said in
closing to the law students. "At 18, I sat on Marco Beach,
which was a great white beach without any sign of
civilization, no buildings, no structures, my sister,
myself and a friend, watching as the sun went down in the
western Gulf, and as it went, I saw a 'green flash' for
the first and only time in my life. For those of you who
don't know, a green flash is an atmospheric phenomenon --
it is something sailors sometimes see and it is something
you will never forget. Ladies and gentlemen, I want the
children of Florida to be able to see the green flash on a
pristine beach in this state for the remainder of time!"
Paula Bartlett, 33, a second-year law student, says she
was pleasantly surprised at how energetic and forceful
Reno appeared to be; Bartlett's only doubts about the
candidate, she said, concerned her health, "never her
competency."
"She was fabulous, she looks wonderful," Bartlett said.
"She certainly has a wonderful chance of winning the
nomination, but the Bushes are a big name around here."
Later at Fuel, Reno still seemed to be enjoying herself,
raising her voice, continuing to speak in exclamation
points, as the crowd whooped its approval. Her brother,
hovering in the back, said she had him beat for stamina.
"I'm ready to go lay down, myself," he said.
Onstage, Reno was winding down. "What you see is what you
get," she said. "You've got a record to judge. You know
that when I face the hard decisions, and made the hard
decisions, I was accountable for them and the buck stops
with me!"
Soon, it was time for questions from the audience -- one
about the ban on gay adoptions in Florida (she wants it
lifted), another about the restoration of the Everglades
(which she emphatically supports). When the moderator
stepped in to say there would be time for only one more
question, Reno gently objected. She would be happy to take
three.
By Sue Anne Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writer
2002 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
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