Florida offers different opportunities for different presidential candidates

By Jim Stratton

Jul. 20, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune News Service delivered by Newstex) -- ORLANDO, Fla. -- Set aside the soaring speeches and rock-star rallies, and Sen. Barack Obama's future in Florida depends on a fragile proposition.

To win the Sunshine State, the Democrat needs a massive turnout among two fickle voting blocs: young people and blacks.

By contrast, his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, sees a state of tailor-made constituencies: military types and conservative whites, especially in North Florida; wealthy Republicans in southwest Florida; Cubans in southeast Florida, along with lots of other right-of-center Floridians.

Add in the GOP's famous turnout machine -- Republicans carried Florida in eight of the past 11 presidential elections -- and you reach the same conclusion as pollster Brad Coker.

"Overall, the state's long been more Republican than the rest of the country," he says. "I think the Gore-Bush race in 2000 created a false impression about how even it was."

At the same time, that narrow Bush win -- 537 votes, amid evidence that thousands of Gore voters saw their ballots discarded as spoiled -- inspires Steve Schale, Obama's campaign chief in Florida.

All Obama has to do, Schale said, is "just a little better than Al Gore did in 2000."

Here's how he'll try -- and how McCain will try to stop him.

--Obama: Maximize turnout

Obama must rev up voter turnout, especially in Democrat-rich South Florida; his Florida operation started going door-to-door Saturday. In particular, he'll court blacks and young voters, two groups that overwhelmingly support him -- but who can be inconsistent.

In 2000, for example, Florida exit polls found that blacks accounted for 15 percent of all voters, propelling Gore into his virtual dead heat with George W. Bush. In 2004, the percentage dropped to 12, and Bush beat John Kerry by a comfortable five points. As the first black man nominated by a major party, Obama should get that total up this year.

Places to watch: Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, Orange County, South Florida.

Young voters can be all over the map. In 2000, about 35 percent of Florida voters ages 18 to 24 went to the polls; four years later, it was 46 percent, according to the University of Maryland. But there are signs that Obama's appeal to young voters -- especially on college campuses -- may be waning. A recent ABC News poll found that the percentage of voters younger than 30 who were certain they would vote in November has dropped 20 points since March.

Places to watch: Gainesville, Tallahassee, Central Florida, South Florida.

Schale is unfazed, noting that Democrats have out-registered Republicans 7-to-1 since January: "There's no reason to believe we won't see a huge, huge turnout. The sheer enthusiasm is unprecedented."

--McCain: Curry old favor

McCain will be relying on middle- and upper-class conservatives in predictably Republican regions of the state, Cubans in South Florida and active and retired military -- as well as traditional Southern Democrats -- in the northern tier of the state.

McCain has an edge in that his supporters tend to be white and somewhat older -- a population that rarely skips an election. In 2004 in Florida, whites accounted for 73 percent of the vote and went for Bush by a 17-point margin. People older than 45, meanwhile, made up 55 percent of the Election Day vote and broke for Bush by 20 points.

McCain may have trouble exciting some of the GOP's conservative base -- particularly illegal-immigration hard-liners -- but it is unlikely they will jump ship for Obama.

Places to watch: The I-75 corridor from Sarasota to Naples, almost everywhere north of Ocala -- except Gainesville and Tallahassee -- and the I-4 corridor.

Both candidates will run hard at voters who aren't members of either major party. There are about 2.2 million of them in Florida, with about 30 percent clustered along the I-4 corridor between Volusia and Hillsborough counties. This could turn into a bar fight.

"Senator McCain has strong crossover appeal with disaffected Democrats and independents throughout Florida," said his regional campaign manager, Buzz Jacobs.

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Hispanic voters are another crucial subset, numbering about 1.2 million statewide. Democrats have a slight edge in registration, but in the past two elections, they went for Bush. A recent AP-Yahoo News national poll had Obama ahead among all Hispanics by 25 points, with 26 percent undecided.

Complicating the Hispanic-vote analysis in Florida are about 850,000 voting-age Cuban-Americans. Traditionally, they vote Republican. But the Pew Hispanic Center found that while 28 percent of Cubans consider themselves Republican, 20 percent consider themselves Democrats.

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POLITICALLY, FLORIDA FUNCTIONS LIKE 4 STATES:

--1. In the north, old-school Southern Democrats like their iced tea sweet and their presidents conservative. The upper third of Florida has long favored Republicans, even though Democrats dominate party registration. Take tiny Liberty County. Democrats outnumber Republicans there by almost 9-to-1, but it hasn't voted Democratic in a presidential race since 1980.

--2. I-4 corridor. The state's midsection is fat with independent voters and party members willing to swing either way. Registration is close, with Democrats at 1.16 million and Republicans at 1.08 million. In the past two presidential elections, only five of Florida's 67 counties split their vote, going GOP in one cycle and Dem in the other. Four -- Osceola, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando -- are in the middle of the state. Orange illustrates just how tight this corridor is. Add up the votes of the past two elections and you'll find the Democrat got 49.4 percent of the vote; the Republican, 48.4 percent.

--3. Southwest Florida, thick with golf courses and retirees from the nation's heartland, leans right as well. In the five-county area stretching from Manatee to Collier, Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 170,000 voters. And historically, Republicans rarely stray from their party.

--4. South Florida's big urban counties -- Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach -- are Democratic fortresses, thanks, in part, to transplanted Northeastern and Jewish voters. Democrats outnumber Republicans by almost 500,000 voters, and any Democratic candidate has to clean up here to carry the state.

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(c) 2008, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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