01.16.2004
Deutsch in town to drum up support
By BILL COTTERELL, The Tallahassee Democrat
bcotterell@tallahassee.com
U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch frankly conceded that a Yale-educated lawyer from New York who has represented Broward County in Congress for a dozen years might not be every Panhandle Democrat's ideal image of a Senate candidate.
But at a breakfast meeting with black educators, business executives and religious leaders assembled by state Sen. Al Lawson, Deutsch said his party has to quit letting Republicans claim the leadership role on issues of patriotism, national defense and family values.
Deutsch said President Bush and congressional Republicans want to "destroy" public education, Social Security and medical services for the poor and elderly - while privatizing as much of government as they can at the state and national levels.
"If white Democrats in North Florida could create their ideal candidate, you might not create a Peter Deutsch," he said. "If being pro-gun is the central core of your existence, the most important thing in your life, you're probably not going to vote for me. But that's probably only 5 to 7 percent of the people who feel that way, and very few of them are going to vote Democratic anyway, quite frankly."
Deutsch, D-Pembroke Pines, scheduled stops in Tallahassee on the first Big Bend foray of his campaign to succeed U.S. Sen. Bob Graham in Washington.
He marked the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. with a two-hour question period before Lawson and 20 Tallahasseeans, often blasting President Bush and Gov. Jeb Bush for their economic and social policies.
Harsh criticism
"Total elimination of Medicaid, elimination of all federal funding of education, eliminating half the funding for Medicare - in the minds of many Republicans, these are not a bad thing," Deutsch said. "They have great public relations, but they want to return us to a time before civil rights, before Social Security, before clean-air-and-water laws."
Deutsch faces Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas and former Education Commissioner Betty Castor in the Aug. 31 Democratic primary. With no runoffs this year, the nomination could be won with little more than one-third of the statewide vote, and Deutsch said being the only candidate serving in Congress gave him an advantage.
He estimated that 30 percent of Florida voters are locked in by each party, so he wants to appeal to the 40 percent who can go either way. Although the GOP is outnumbered in registration, the Bush brothers and Republicans running for Cabinet seats have won statewide races in recent years by appealing to conservative Democrats and those with no party affiliation - especially in the rural northern counties.
"The No.1 problem of the Democratic party, nationally and in Florida, is that we give up on certain issues," Deutsch said. "The Republicans say they're better at protecting us from terrorism, producing jobs and that they are more patriotic and have faith, more than we do, and sometimes we let them get away with it."
Lawson, who came to the Florida House with Deutsch in 1982, praised his work on civil rights and state employment issues in the state Legislature. Lawson said "he was always there for us" in supporting education and health-care programs for rural counties all over the state, not only in his Southeast Florida district.
"I needed to make alliances with people in the Legislature, trying to make sure we got dollars to FAMU and into the minority communities," Lawson said. "He helped us get the Martin Luther King holiday we're celebrating now. The Democrats were in control then, but these things weren't on the agenda."
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