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REVERSAL OF FORTUNES

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By ROSEMARY GOUDREAU

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 19, 2008

In studying the presidential polls for this battleground state, former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez recalls the day Republican Sen. John McCain's campaign began its stunning, discouraging decline.

"I happened to be flying with him when he did the statement in Jacksonville about the economy being fundamentally sound. I was sitting next to Jack Kemp when that happened. He should have qualified it. He's been on defense ever since.

"Then when he said he was going to suspend the campaign and rush back to Washington, it caused the campaign to go backwards a couple of weeks. Then, of course, Washington sucked all the air out of the whole political environment for a week and a half over what they were going to do."

Those pivotal, mid-September days mark the moment when Florida, which has trended red in presidential politics, began turning Democratic blue.

People who follow Florida politics, myself included, find the state's jaw-dropping turnabout incredible. So last week we convened a few experts to discuss what has happened.

They were: Martinez, a former Republican governor from Tampa; Jim Davis, a former Democratic congressman from Tampa; Susan McManus, a distinguished professor of political science at the University of South Florida in Tampa; and William March, The Tampa Tribune's seasoned political writer.

Here are their insights, in edited excerpts.

Davis: Something fundamental is going on. This is a trend line that's very consistent and distinct. I would add that each of these candidates has gone through a test the last few weeks, and Sen. Obama has acquitted himself well. I think Sen. McCain has stumbled a bit.

March: I think Congressman Davis is right that there's something different here. You never saw numbers like this even in the year that Al Gore essentially tied with George Bush. I'm not sure we know exactly what it is that's fundamentally different or how different it is.

Martinez: What is different is, there's no social issues being debated. There's no government control being debated. There's only one subject out there. The economy. That one subject has a Republican president in the White House.

Goudreau: But Floridians have felt the pain of the economy for close to two years, though not with this intensity.

McManus: It's the meltdown on Wall Street. The average person who's not invested, they think, "rich Republicans, rich CEOs." They think if they bail them out, they better bail me out, too. The "R" after a person's name right now is not optimal.

Martinez: It's the 401(k) effect. The investor class today is quite large because of 401(k)s. These are people who were thrifty and saved money. They're made insecure by virtue of what's occurred in the last few weeks in the financial system.

Davis: It's not just the stock market. Look at the foreclosure rate. You can drive around and see it, particularly if you get outside the city. It's stunning, and it's getting worse. People thought they were leaving this type of financial pressure behind when they moved to Florida, and I think it makes them far more open to change.

March: It's frightening to see the kind of things that have been happening on Wall Street lately. It shakes the foundations of people's beliefs that their country is solid and indestructible.

McManus: We have a crisis of faith in institutions in both the private and public sectors. In politics, we say there are three conditions that will make a person leave the party they've identified with their whole life. Number one, an economic downturn. Number two, a war. Number three, corruption. When you have an economic downturn, the party in power takes it on the chin the next election.

Martinez: No question about it.

Davis: I think Obama's strength, because neither one of these gentlemen has had a lot of executive experience, is about how he's run his campaign. Obama in the primary talked about trying to reach out and bring people together, which was a risky strategy. He's talked about change from the beginning, and that's still what he's talking about.

Martinez: The reason I think it's close is the change doesn't have any substance behind it. He's engaged in no change whatsoever. If he believed in change he would have done something in Chicago. I don't believe people think he's engaged in change in his past.

Goudreau: McCain, on the other hand, has a reputation for reaching across the aisle to solve problems. Look at how he handled the Abramoff affair and his stance against earmarks. He's been very principled.

Davis: Give him finance reform, but earmarks are not words that matter to people right now. I was in church yesterday, and the minister said there are people in this church who may not have anything left by the end of the year. This is a church with a lot of dual-wage earners and kids in school. That's where people are right now. These are times that don't come along very often in Washington, where people think the decisions that are going to be made up there are going to have a significant effect on their daily lives.

Martinez: He's right on that. But the truth of the matter is of the two, only one has a history of change, and it is not Obama. And if, in fact, he stood for what the American people want, he'd have a double-digit lead.

Goudreau: So why is he ahead?

Martinez: He's clearly able to communicate his message much more redundantly than John McCain.

McManus: A lot of the upswing in the blue is that Democrats have been extremely successful at registering young voters. They're focused on college campuses because college students vote, whereas their same-age counterparts do not.

Goudreau: What's the potential there?

McManus: What's happening is the age distribution of Florida has changed. If you look at the youngest and oldest cohorts, they are about equal in size in terms of registrants. It's a real big change in Florida.

Goudreau: What about Sarah Palin? McCain got a huge bounce after naming her his running mate, but that bounce didn't seem to last very long.

March: Things like the Katie Couric interview, and Tina Fey's impressions of her, have affected how people see her.

McManus: I disagree. I think she's the only thing that's keeping the ticket alive in Florida right now. Much of the press makes a lot about her reaching the Evangelical vote, which is not a sizable vote in our state. But everywhere I go there have been Republicans who say for once we don't have an all-white, male ticket. I don't think she's been a liability in this state. Maybe elsewhere, but not in Florida.

Goudreau: What could McCain do to turn this around?

Martinez: I wouldn't run away from the economy at all. I would go after Obama's tax policy, which is very vulnerable because what he's saying is not what's going to happen. When he talks about tax credits, there isn't any tax credit - it's sending checks to people who never have paid taxes; it's a back-door welfare system. Then I'd go after Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and tie Chris Dodd and Barney Frank to it. That's where it all happened - when they loosened the requirements on coming up with down payments to get a loan.

Davis: On the spending thing, Sen. McCain just came out with this unbelievably large proposal to buy all the mortgages and that's been repudiated by Republican leaders in Congress. I think it's another example of him bouncing around in his message.

Goudreau: Is there time for McCain to come back?

Martinez: As volatile as this is, yes.

McManus: Yes, but it'll be tough. You never say never in Florida. Taxes are always a lingering issue here and the believability of all the pledges that are being made and who's going to pay for it. Floridians have always been a little bit anti-tax and a little suspicious of people who promise to do a lot of things but not raise taxes.

March: John McCain is a man with a history of coming from behind. A lot of people say that's when he's best, when he's coming out as an underdog. On the other hand, to me Barack Obama is like the tennis player who sits on the baseline and never kills you, but never makes a mistake and makes you pay for every mistake you make. I see his campaign as No Drama Obama - everything well coordinated, under control and smoothly flowing. That kind of opponent can be very difficult to beat.

McManus: Florida's always close, and it's still about turnout.

Goudreau: What do you expect voter turnout to be?

McManus: As a percentage of registered voters, I'd say at least 75.

March: You're predicting unusually high numbers.

McManus: When people are angry, they vote.

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