The air is slowly seeping out of the silvery party balloon tied to a basket on Paul Pezzella`s desk.
Pezzella is the Florida director for Michael Dukakis` presidential campaign, a campaign the Massachusetts governor kicked off with two enthusiastic late-summer visits in the afterglow of the Democratic convention. ”This is where we intend to break the back of the Bush campaign,”
Pezzella told the Miami Herald in late August.
But Democratic hopes for the state, which has voted Republican in four of the last five presidential elections, were, perhaps, inflated.
Dukakis hasn`t been back to Florida since his summer visits; only one trip to the state is scheduled for this month.
About 230 miles to the north, in Orlando, a poster in the entrance of George Bush`s Florida headquarters may explain why. ”Latest poll,” it advertises. ”BUSH 53%. DUKAKIS 41%.”
Florida was touted early by Democrats as their Southern cornerstone. It has 21 electoral votes (the seventh-largest cache in the nation), a reputation for electing Democrats at the local and state level, and a slim Dukakis lead over Bush in early matchups last winter.
But the polls have shown continued strength for Bush in the South, and Dukakis` strategists now see greater opportunities in the big prizes of California and Texas and the populous Rust Belt states, including New York and Illinois.
”California is the big enchilada. It`s the state right now that we have to take,” Pezzella now concedes. ”Obviously with 47 electoral votes, it will get the most attention.”
Underscoring the shift of Dukakis` fortunes in Florida, Pezzella and his top assistant will be moving their base of operations to one of the hotly contested Great Lakes states soon, turning the Florida effort over to volunteers.
Bush held a 54 percent to 37 percent lead in Florida in The Chicago Tribune poll published last month, the vice president`s strongest showing among five key states surveyed. Feeling safe about his Florida prospects-and feeling the same pressures as Dukakis feels in California, Texas and the Rust Belt-Bush hasn`t been to Florida since the convention, either.
”Obviously you go where the battlegrounds are,” said Bush`s Florida director, Bemis Smith.
The Sunshine State, where Dukakis won on Super Tuesday with 40.9 percent of the Democratic vote, might have offered brighter prospects for the Democrats this year had they kept their momentum going after the convention.
A 3-to-2 Democratic majority among registered voters, including large blocs of blacks, Jews and retirees-1 in 5 voters-and, in the northern part of the state, Southern whites, provided a base for the Massachusetts governor to emphasize his moderate credentials and conservative Southern running mate.
But Bush`s unanswered attacks painting Dukakis as a big-spending liberal dominated the last half of the summer, obscuring Dukakis` efforts to promote the domestic issues that appeal to the traditional Democratic constituencies. ”You`ve got to make your issues relate to something they relate to,”
said State Rep. James Burke of Miami, a former leader of Jesse Jackson`s campaign who became a state co-chair of the Dukakis effort.
He said that Dukakis strategists should have begun stressing issues such as health care for the poor and elderly a month or two ago, not just within the last couple of weeks.
”I think they`ve allowed Bush to get away with it for too long and they should be more aggressive stating the issues,” said Florida House Majority Leader Ron Silver, a Democrat from North Miami Beach. He said of his predominantly Jewish condo-belt voters, ”I don`t think they know Dukakis`
positions on the issues.”
Even if there was an earlier assault by the Democrats, it may ultimately not have made a difference. The Democratic edge in registration has been slipping for the last decade as the massive immigration of retirees and opportunity seekers has made Florida a boom state.
”There`s an underlying conservatism across the board here,” said Michael Milakovich, a political scientist at the University of Miami. ”One of the reasons they leave is their disenchantment with the liberal Democratic machines and high taxes.”
When people move here, they find jobs. The unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in August, compared with the national rate of 5.6 percent. Rebecca Rust, an economic analyst for the state, said the rate would be even lower if there weren`t such a steady flow of new workers seeking jobs. Florida has the fastest growth rate of the 11 largest states.
”Unemployment is low,” Milakovich said. ”`Good jobs at good wages` (a favorite Dukakis campaign theme) is not going to grab anybody.”
Because of the general satisfaction, Pezzella said that Democrats will emphasize ”the uncertainty of the future,” asking how young families will be able to afford a home or a college education for their children while paying for rising health-care costs and long-term care for their parents.
Florida also appears to be more pro-Reagan, with 46 percent saying Bush is a good choice to continue the President`s legacy, compared with 38 percent for all five states in the Tribune survey. To exploit that popularity, Reagan made one of his few campaign stops to Florida last week on Bush`s behalf.
Bush has another asset in the state, both sides agree, in his son, Jeb, who resigned earlier this month as Florida secretary of commerce and who, when he was Dade County Republican chairman, developed close ties with the large Cuban population in Miami.
To counter what Pezzella calls those ”institutional and demographic disadvantages,” Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen has twice visited conservative Democratic territory in northern Florida, stressing his Southern credentials. Also, popular moderate Democratic Senators Lawton Chiles and Robert Graham have promised to devote October to campaigning for the ticket.
Despite the current standings, both camps are preparing aggressive grass- roots efforts through direct mail and phone banks. ”There`s a lot of softness out there,” said Smith, who is looking to lock in the Bush majority. Rich Bond, Bush`s national political director, said the campaign`s only concern is that Florida is one of the states that could weaken if something detrimental happens elsewhere in the campaign, such as a major debate gaffe.
The Democrats, meanwhile, will be prepared if that break comes. In Florida particularly, they will be exploiting Bush`s chairmanship of the South Florida Drug Task Force and questions about his knowledge of alleged drug dealing by Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega, which Milakovich said are ”the only things that would soften Bush`s strength.”
Pezzella believes the Dukakis campaign is on the right track with its focus in recent weeks on substantive speeches. ”The only weakness,” he said, ”is that we need to accelerate getting that message out.”
