Democrats Promise Revenge in Florida

At a convention of 4,000 Florida party activists, Democrats alternated harsh criticism of Bush's leadership with promises to remember the disputed 2000 election and make it a rallying cry for next year, when Florida will again play a crucial role.

"None of us are ever going to forget," Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said of the ballot chaos, which ended when the Supreme Court stopped the recount with Bush beating Democrat Al Gore by 537 votes. "We are going to be energized. This state remains crucial, but most importantly it is winnable."

Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt said anger over the recount and four years of Bush made Florida and its 27 electoral votes ripe for a Democratic victory.

"I really believe we're going to win in Florida in 2004," Gephardt said. "I have never seen Democrats this motivated to win an election."

He cautioned, however, that the party could not dwell on the past and needed an optimistic vision for the future. "You can't win elections by looking through the rear view mirror," he said.

Public opinion polls show all of the Democrats battling for the right to challenge Bush in 2004 will face a tough task in Florida, where Bush leads by double digits. Bush's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, was re-elected comfortably in 2002 despite Democratic efforts to make the recount an issue.

But Democrats predicted Florida would be another intense battleground in 2004, and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said Democrats would win "the old-fashioned way -- by counting every vote."

OBJECTS TO INTERNET VOTING

"We are never going to let the United States Supreme Court decide the president of the United States again," he said.

Edwards criticized a Michigan Democratic Party plan to allow Internet voting in its Feb. 7 presidential primary, saying it would reduce the influence of poor and minority voters.

He and Kerry also criticized Bush supporter Walden O'Dell, the head of Diebold Election Systems, which makes voting machines that will be used in at least eight states in 2004. Democrats have questioned whether the machines can be rigged in ways that cannot be detected.

Edwards called on Bush to give back the money raised by O'Dell, one of his "Pioneer" fund raisers.

The convention delegates heard from six candidates on Saturday -- Kerry, Gephardt, Edwards, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Gore's running mate in 2000, was scheduled to appear on Sunday and planned to say the Bush campaign's effort during the recount was a sign of things to come in his administration.

"They stretched the truth to suit their purposes, they demonized their opponents, they used every trick in the book to get their way," Lieberman said in excerpts of his speech released on Saturday. "And that's the way they've governed."

Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun canceled her speech because of illness, while civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who was in New York to host "Saturday Night Live," did not attend.

The candidates agreed to attend the convention after the state party dropped plans for a straw poll.


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