Obama's Florida shot: A key to victory

by Mark Silva

ST. CLOUD, Fla. - A flood of television ads, an unprecedented army of Democratic campaign workers and a souring economy have converged to offer Sen. Barack Obama a chance of winning in the biggest of all battlegrounds: Florida.

In this state which has only sparingly yielded its vote to Democrats in presidential elections - and, since the 1960s, only Southern Democrats - Obama's potential advantage two weeks from Election Day marks an extraordinary turn of events.

And, with a winning formula traditionally dependent on carrying two of the three big battlegrounds - Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida - Obama's potential for claiming the 27 electoral votes of this, the fourth-largest state positions him for a potentially overwhelming Electoral College victory.

Obama's apparent gains over Republican rival John McCain in Florida, measured in polling reversals only since Labor Day, correspond with a meltdown in the nation's economy and an underlying reality that more voters trust Obama with handling economic trouble. And in this state traditionally insulated from national economic woes, unemployment has risen above the national average, the housing market has collapsed and foreclosures are epidemic.

At the same time, the stunning decline of the stock market, and with it the portfolios of a state home to millions of retirees, and an unsettling federal intervention in the banking industry have stood to benefit a candidate who already had vastly outspent and out-organized his rival. Obama has outspent McCain by three-to-one in TV ads here and his drive to register new, particularly young voters, his 50 field offices and plan to turn voters out to the polls represent a Democratic drive unseen in this state before.

Even some influential Republicans voice worries that McCain simply has taken Florida for granted until now.

"It is a mistake to take Florida for granted and assume that it is a Republican state,'' says Sally Bradshaw, a close political adviser to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush who campaigned for Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries, which McCain won here, positioning him for the nomination. "At the same time, you can't count McCain out. He's at his best when things get tough.''

The economy, however, has dealt McCain a tough hand here.

See the report on the Florida race in today's Tribune, and see an expanded report here in the Swamp:

Ed Jamassi and Andres Laso, two longtime friends, are dealing with a slump in business at used-car dealerships they own in Orlando.

"The economy is important right now,'' says Jamassi, a finance student, seated on an open-air plaza at the University of Central Florida beneath a full moon, where the final televised debate of the presidential campaign was playing on a big screen. "We own car dealerships, and we really feel the effects of what's happened... Business is 65 percent down from last year.''

"Ours is 60 percent down,'' Laso says. "Every month, I'm doing 10 repo's.''

"I believe, mostly with the undecided voters, it's affected their vote,'' Jamassi says. "I think the economy hurt McCain more than it helped Obama. I think more people trust Obama than Mccain on the economy.''

The polls bear that out: 60 percent of Florida voters call the economy the greatest factor in this election, according to the latest Quinnipiac University survey, and more trust Obama to deal with it - by a margin of 53 - 39 percent.

"What's happened in Florida isn't much different than what's happened in the rest of the country,'' says Quinnipiac's Peter Brown. "It is a testament to the times that voters are breaking his way... Sometimes being lucky is as important as being good.''

Still, this couold be a close contest

The newest Mason-Dixon poll now shows a virtual tie between McCain, at 46 percent among likely voters, and Obama, at 45, in Florida. The statistical tie, with a 4 percent margin of error, is virtually the same as a 2-point edge which Obama held in a Mason-Dixon survey earlier this month.

More significant, however, may be McCain's new and narrow advantage in the Tampa Bay area: 47-44. Since the 1960s, Tampa's Hillsborough County has voted the way Florida has voted in every presidential election. Obama held a 4-point edge there earlier this month.

Not only the intensity of Obama's TV ads, but also their message, have served him well in a campaign which has turned increasingly negative as McCain has slipped in the polls.

Obama "was flooding the state with ads at the same time the economy has been on peoples' minds. He has promised 95 percent a tax cut, and Floridians like their low taxes,'' says Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist at UCF. "It's not just the number of ads, but he has positioned himself as a moderate who will cut your taxes.''

Although older voters in Florida are siding with McCain, younger voters lining up with Obama have helped boost the state's registered voting rolls past 11.2 million. And, a seasoned political scientist here has found that, while Floridians 65 and older account for 24 percent of those registered to vote - the 75-and-up crowd alone is 12 percent - voters 18 to 29 account for 18 percent of the rolls, and voters 30 to 44 account for another 24 percent.

The Quinnipiac poll, on Oct. 1, found Obama holding a 51-43 point advantage over McCain - a reversal from McCain's 50-43 edge over Obama in Florida on Sept. 11.

Among women surveyed, Obama held a 20-point advantage. Among independent voters - particularly in the long Interstate 4 corridor that spans the center of the state from Tampa to Orlando and Daytona Beach - Obama held a 12-point edge

And the well-funded Obama - estimated at $40 million in Florida - has organized its supporters to turn out on Nov. 4, with a ground organization as vast as the one that President Bush relied upon for a 5-percentage point Florida victory at reelection.

"I think it's in play,'' says Susan MacManus, professor of political science at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "It's almost like the Democratic Party has borrowed the Republican Party playbook from 2004 and improved upon it.

"The ground game does matter,'' MacManus adds of the Obama campaign. "They got a lot of people in here early to register to vote, and they've done everything possible to keep them active and keep them engaged. It's who can turn people out... In this state, it really does come down to turnout.''

Still, Republicans are counting on an organization built by the president's younger brother in two successful elections, in 1998 and 2002, and then rallied for the president in 2004. As Election Day nears, they are plowing money into their own turnout drive, with a flood of phone calls, while rivaling Obama's final TV-buy.

"I think we're going to win,'' says Brian Ballard, a Tallahassee lawyer, lobbyist and fundraiser for McCain, allowing that Obama has outspent them. "You spend $40 million anywhere, you spend $40 million in Utah, Utah would be in play...

"We have to make sure we ramp up our spending... We've got the resources and plan on spending it,'' he says. "If it's the biggest organization, let's concede (Obama) wins. But I'll take the Republican Party's history of turning out the vote against anybody's.''

Who are those voters?

Nearly two million are military veterans, and McCain has built a base of support from the western Panhandle, where many veterans have retired, to northeastern Jacksonville, home to big bases, including the Naval Air Station where McCain once served. He counts on the largely Republican retirees of the Gulf Coast and Southwestern Florida, and he counts on a strong majority of the Cuban-American vote around Miami. He also counts on the conservative evangelical base of his party.

Here in conservative St. Cloud, white clouds break the afternoon sun and a breeze stirs the royal palms that flank the low brick post office as Astrid Rodriguez arrives with a package.

"I don't trust Obama,'' Rodriguez says. "I know something is going to happen. The times that we are living in, by the Bible, I'm Christian, I know something is going to happen. We can see the signs. And something is telling me that Obama is part of that.

"I can't say 'the anti-Christ,' but if we put together everything it tells me something is happening,'' she says. "With McCain, they say it is going to be more of the same. But if I give my vote, I'm not giving it to Obama... I'll stay with the same.''

Obama is courting African-Americans, women and younger voters throughout the state - including a sizeable share of younger Cuban-Americans turning against Republican congressmen in polling in Miami - and that independent-minded vote across the I-4 corridor. In Tampa's bellwether Hillsborough County, where Obama and McCain are fighting for an advantage.

Terri Cowan, of St. Cloud, is one of the middle-aged women whom Obama counts on. "I like his change policy,'' Cowan says at the post office. "The big issue I have with McCain is that he's gonna follow right along with Bush, and I'm not for that.''

What's perhaps most remarkable in this mix are inroads that Obama has made in what's long been billed as "Bush country.''

Younger Cuban-Americans are leaning Democratic, with polling showing that long-safe Republican members of Congress suddenly have contests on their hands. Dario Moreno, a pollster and political scientist at Florida International University, has found that in Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart's Miami district, which Bush carried by 56 percent, McCain draws only 46 percent.

"Florida Hispanics have been Republican because of the support of Cuban Americans, and Cuban Americans have largely been homogeneous,'' he says. "What we're seeing now is that Cuban Americans are less of the Hispanic vote - less than 50 percent - and non-Cuban Hispanics becoming more Democratic.

"The Obama appeal to young people is working among young Cubans and Hispanic,'' Moreno says. "Basically, it becomes hard for Republicans among anyone younger than 40...

"There was a time when it looked like McCain had this,'' Moreno says of the state. "I've never seen such a phenomenal change in backdrops.''

Bobby Stein, a big-time business investor in Jacksonville, longtime Republican and close friend of the Bush family, has aligned with Obama since he met him over dinner in Washington last year. He switched his registration to Democratic three months ago.

The reason for Obama's recent gains here are simple, he suggests: "It's the economy... People are suffering... This is the reason I'm giving all my effort for Obama. It's for the kids. If we lose the middle class, it's the fall for the future of the country.''

Bucky Clarkson, a Jacksonville developer and Democrat who started raising money for Obama last year, says: "I must say, two months ago, if somebody told me we have a really good chance for Florida, I would have been skeptical.''