ORLANDO It’s impolite to notice, but notice they do on the campaign trail: Janet Reno is a lot of woman. She’s 6′ 11/2″ barefoot, 6′ 13/4″ in her sensible flats. Perhaps no other Clinton cabinet member aroused such disparate passions as the former attorney general and current Florida gubernatorial candidate. As befits a human Rorschach test, she has been called many things–by her champions, everything from “Mother Teresa” (Florida attorney general Bob Butterworth) to “pure oxygen in a city with thin air” (Time magazine) to a “folk hero” (herself); by her critics, everything from “the most corrupt attorney general” in history to “Janet Reno Clouseau.” But when they meet her in person, most people, fan or foe, have a more rudimentary reaction to the outsized Reno. They approach her with all the subtlety you’d expect at a Sasquatch sighting. “Wow, she’s much taller than I thought,” one rally attendee says in Tallahassee. “She’s quite large, I hear she’s over 6’4″,” gasps a health department official in Tampa. From Reno’s perspective, this in a way is good. Crass as it may be, discussion of her physique means people are taking notice of her human dimensions. And no candidate this year is more in need of humanization than the often dour Reno. When not evidencing what a biographer called her “ramrod rectitude,” she seemed nearly androidish in the face of fallout from the Waco catastrophe, the Clinton fund-raising morass, and the Elian Gonzalez affair. “Reintroducing Janet to Floridians,” as her campaign manager says, is why Reno embarked on her “Red Truck Tour” of Florida. Manning the wheel of a used 1999 Ford Ranger, Reno lit out on February 26 from the Alabama border for a 15-day jaunt across the state. Hoping to unseat Gov. Jeb Bush this fall if she can withstand a primary challenge from Tampa lawyer Bill McBride–a neophyte whom Democratic kingmakers are supporting since they believe he matches up better against Bush–Reno has something to prove. The 63-year-old has been perceived as physically frail since she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1995. It didn’t help matters when she fainted during a speech at the University of Rochester on February 1. Forty-five minutes into her talk, Reno timbered backwards, uttered “Damn” on the way down, and provided a disastrous CNN visual: the candidate sprawled on her back, her size-13 gunboats peeping out from behind the rostrum. As undesirable stagecraft goes, the episode ranked alongside Ed Muskie’s crying jag. Reno’s cousin played it off as a “30-second nap,” and Reno’s doctors let everyone know she’d collapsed because she was overheated and undernourished, not because of Parkinson’s. Since it was her third public collapse since 1997, Reno joked that every once in a while she goes “zoop.” But Reno has been subjected to polite sniping even in friendly quarters. At a Democratic candidates’ forum, state representative Lois Frankel (one of two additional non-factors in the Democratic primary) said, “Wherever we go, Janet gets the most attention, whether she’s standing up or lying down.” DERIVATIVE though it may be (Sen. Fred Thompson drove a red truck across Tennessee in his 1994 campaign), The Red Truck Tour is Reno’s shot to prove she is robust enough to be governor. I catch up with her in Orlando, and immediately kick myself when my colleagues in Reno’s trailing white press van tell me what I’ve missed: Janet carefully treading in her flats across Ft. Walton’s white-sand beaches while trying not to go down on her keister as did a cameraman, Janet schmoozing her base at a gay resort (site of the Suncoast Eagle leather bar), Janet playing drums (badly) before an anemic crowd at a Bo Diddley concert in Gainesville. In the van, the radio is tuned to the “Doc and Johnny” morning show. Reno is the guest. Doc, or maybe it’s Johnny, says he’s heard that Reno’s heading to Daytona, home of spring-break hedonism, and warns her not to “get involved in any cole slaw wrestling.” “That’s what I’ve heard,” responds Reno. After she leaves, Johnny (or maybe Doc) says, “She’s very straightforward. You may agree with it, you may not, but if you’re looking for someone to be joking and all this stuff, that’s not in her nature.” Our first stop of the day is JP’s Everyday Gourmet in Orlando. Though maximum capacity at the breakfast spot is 128, about a quarter of that number are sleepily ingesting their “day-break burritos” and “snorita frittatas.” Reno pulls up in her truck, and is met by a throng of reporters, who nearly outnumber customers. The patrons, for their part, evidence a beam of recognition, but not a one gets up to greet her, nor does she seem interested in greeting them. Instead, she heads to a back table to breakfast with retired officer Malcolm Thompson and his wife. In 1997, Thompson, of the Kissimmee police department, was shot four times in the head, neck, and chest. One bullet went through his temple, traveled through his sinus cavity, and is still lodged in his jaw. He is now blind in one eye, and has blurry vision in the other. But when asked if he can see Reno across the table, he responds, “She’s a beautiful lady.” (“I’m glad your wife is here,” Reno answers primly.) Reno is trying to shore up support among law enforcement types, with whom she has never been popular (in December, the Miami-Dade Police Benevolent Association boycotted her when she spoke at a dinner). During her AG stint, even one Clintonite groused that “she seems more interested in sociology” than in being tough on crime. But as governor, Reno says she’d make Florida “safer” (since 2000, Florida has seen its lowest crime rate in 30 years). Reno speaks so softly that even two or three feet away it is difficult to hear her. Consequently, the pack presses around her table so close that we ought to be issued hairnets. Reno and Thompson are trying hard to replicate natural conversation, which sounds more like Reno reciting pre-fab campaign bits, while Thompson exuberantly nods. Reno says there’s “no excuse for putting a gun beside someone’s head.” “I agree,” says Thompson. Reno says she’d like to start federal/state partnerships in law enforcement. “I think that’s super,” says Thompson. Remembering that she’s there “to learn,” Reno asks Thompson what he can think of. “You caught me off guard there,” he says. The media are interested in more substantive issues. “How’s your backside doing?” asks one television reporter. “The Little Red Truck has the best seat I’ve ever been in, I don’t get tired,” says Reno. “What do you listen to in the truck?” asks another. “Hank Williams, Johnny Cash,” says Reno. I ask her what she thinks about while doing all that driving. “I’m thinking about Florida,” she says. Then the media are banned from the table, and Reno and the Thompsons dine through long patches of silence. A few tables away, we buttonhole Reno’s 29-year-old campaign manager, Mo Elleithee, a former press secretary to Virginia governor Mark Warner’s campaign. While Reno’s campaign thus far has consisted almost entirely of hammering Bush for not spending enough on education, one reporter wants to know how she intends to pay for increases. “Right now, she’s just laying out her themes,” says Mo. Another reporter wants to know why the campaign keeps saying Reno is a big draw, when in the conservative Panhandle, she was met by sparse crowds. “I said she’s a big draw for March!” Mo counters defensively (the primary isn’t until September). As Reno leaves the restaurant, I corner her for scarce one-on-one time. I am nearly intercepted by her junkyard dog of a press secretary, Nicole Harburger, a 25-year-old former Hill aide whose brunette hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail, though not as tight as most reporters would like to pull it by trip’s end. Though this is purportedly a populist tour designed for Reno to display her aptitude for straight talk, whenever anyone attempts a little private time, Harburger descends like a flying squirrel, her microrecorder whirring. Ordinarily, press secretaries do this to make sure their candidate is not misquote
d or has said nothing embarrassing. But Reno rarely says anything embarrassing in interviews. In fact, she hardly says anything at all–often restricting herself to one-sentence, and even one-word, answers. A typical exchange: Me–“So, what’d you eat back there?” Reno–“Oatmeal.” Harburger–“Matt, check in with me before we pounce on her.” HER CAMPAIGN MANAGER says the purpose of this tour is to “let Janet be Janet.” And Reno is never more Janet than on the walk to her next engagement. Reno’s legions of critics like to say that her bad judgment was often mistaken for let-the-chips-fall integrity. But nobody can accuse Reno of failing to exhibit fetishistic probity on the smallest details. Over the course of her public career, she has refused to drive her state car to work, insisted on flying coach, and even declined complimentary vittles from star-struck cafeteria workers at the Justice Department. As we come to a downtown crosswalk, the intersection is completely empty, but Reno refuses to proceed until the little green man illuminates. As we enter the Orange County Administration Building for a meeting with County Commissioner Homer Hartage, Reno signs in. When the media skip the formality and follow her into the elevator, she wheels around to the security guard and rats us out. “I don’t want to take anybody with me if they haven’t signed in,” she says. Upstairs, she signs in again, then once more in Hartage’s office. As we wait for Hartage to arrive, his assistant asks if we’d like something to drink. I ask for water, and Nicole is on me like a tick. My first reaction is to consider whether I’ve “pounced” on the candidate. But I’m nowhere near Reno, who’s probably off somewhere signing in. “Janet’s really sensitive to the fact that she’s traveling with lots of press,” Harburger barks. “Go easy on these guys, if they don’t offer, don’t ask for anything.” After I cancel my drink order, most of us are shooed from the room. The meeting, it turns out, is another piece of shoddy advance work on the part of the campaign. They have showcased a confab with a county commissioner, who says he is “delighted” with the Reno meeting. “She was much warmer than I thought,” he says. But not so warm that Commissioner Hartage, who is black, feels compelled to support her over state senator Darryl Jones, who also is black, and who stands no chance of winning. From there, it’s off to a slew of black and Hispanic restaurants, where the press corps once again seems to equal or outnumber patrons. At the Cafeteria Latina, which sits next to a pawn shop and a Santeria bookstore, a Univision reporter asks Reno if the poor attendance at her events is the sign of a weak campaign. “I haven’t seen anything but excitement on this truck trip,” says Reno. At the festive Cafe Madrid, Reno meets unusually enthusiastic supporters. But as a glad-hander, Reno needs work. Without a lapel mike or a bullhorn, she should not be allowed in public, with her whisper of a voice. While her age and gender could certainly work for her–with women and seniors in South Florida–she is more spinster aunt than charming grandmother. While she sometimes breaks out in soulful recitations of the natural glories of Florida (she is an avid hiker and kayaker), she often seems like an animatronic version of an actual person. Despite assuring me before I came to Florida that I’d get cab-time with Reno, Harburger has a late-breaking update: “Ix-nay on riding in the truck.” Riding with Janet Reno in her two-seater truck is the most coveted campaign treat, though I’m not quite sure why. The few reporters who have been permitted to do this tell me that Reno sometimes goes 10 minutes without saying a word, that one reporter nearly fell asleep, and that once, after an awkward silence, Reno pulled the truck over so the reporter could be deposited back in the press van. With access so restricted, I am all the more determined to shadow Reno at every campaign stop. One supporter at the restaurant introduces herself to Janet as a “Cuban for Reno,” even though “the Cubans might burn me at the stake.” Reno is not the most popular figure in Little Havana, where Elian Gonzalez’s bed is still featured at a neighborhood shrine. Reno constantly defends her decision, saying “the boy should be with his daddy.” But when she went on Cuban radio last summer to try to defuse the controversy, the host offered her a container of milk, since “from 7 years of age in Cuba, children can’t drink milk” (it’s rationed). As I interview this anomalous Cuban booster (whose family fled Batista, not Castro), Harburger watches my every move, finally pulling me over for an infraction. “Matt, you’re too tight on the candidate. I’m reading it on her face. Hang back. Find your stride. You’re not filing today.” After a heated argument, I return to the pack to grouse. Harburger sneaks up behind me. “You’re telling them what a witch I am,” she snarls. Good guess. Back in the press van on the way to Daytona, my colleagues inform me of the general disarray of the campaign. They call Harburger and company “the kids”–since many are inexperienced and in their twenties. Neither are they the best detail people (one key aide fell asleep during a campaign conference call). Harburger, who often drives the van, seems to know next to nothing about the campaign’s mechanics, frequently relying on reporters for directions to the next stop. And after she draws repeated blanks on everything from the sponsors of fund-raisers to the next morning’s schedule, the Orlando Sentinel’s Mark Silva contemplates buying her a hat with the inscription “Don’t Ask Me.” On name alone, Reno can turn out local news cameras in nearly any market. But her campaign stops often devolve into PR debacles: no advance notice, last-minute scheduling, poor attendance. While none of this would generally matter this early in primary season, Reno’s opponent, Jeb Bush, is a highly disciplined campaigner, as is her Democratic competitor, McBride, who’s been known to make up to 100 fund-raising calls a day. When asked whether Reno makes fund-raising calls on the road, Harburger grows testy: “You guys have a choice; I can barrel down the road at 90 mph, or double task.” “She’s plugged in,” confides one reporter, “the trouble is, the fuse blew two months ago.” OUR NEXT STOP is the Daytona Speedway, a curious one indeed. If Reno is to make it out of the primary and win the general (she’s currently polling 22 points behind Bush), she’ll need to make inroads in the I-4 corridor, the middle ribbon of the state that, unlike the conservative north and liberal south, contains most of Florida’s numerous swing voters. The Daytona Speedway, then, seems a well-conceived stop, until you consider that it is mostly visited by out-of-state voters, whose numbers are swollen because, unbeknownst to Reno, she is visiting in the middle of Bike Week. All around are motorcycle toughs with studded chaps and mean-muchacho mustaches. Their leather’n’fishnet girlfriends look as if their peekaboo cleavages are about to up and run for it. Reno exits her truck, clutching her oversized purse, and is greeted by a tiny knot of Democrats who look like they just left a NARAL meeting. The candidate is even harder to hear than usual. As we catch scattershot phrases like “lower class size” and “mentoring programs,” souped-up Harleys all but drown her out. Reno says she has come there to “learn,” though unless she needs tips on ass tattoos, it’s not entirely clear about what. We glide through Daytona’s museum, where every other exhibit or totem seems to have something to do with Dale Earnhardt. (“Shouldn’t we tell them he’s dead?” says one reporter. “Shhhh!” cautions another, “you don’t joke about Jesus in Nazareth.”) After leaving Daytona, on the road to Jacksonville, I note that Reno rarely drives over 55, and never over 60. Her hands are planted in textbook driver’s ed positions, and her faraway gaze looks like she’s lost–perhaps in thought about Florida. In Jacksonville that night, we worm our way into a fund-raiser thrown by a local attorney that was supposed to be closed to the media. When we get to the Hidden Hills Count
ry Club, we understand why. Three days from now, Jeb Bush will throw a party fund-raiser, attended by his brother the president, at $25,000 a head. But the Reno fund-raiser has a no-minimum cover charge. People can bring $200, $100, maybe even canned goods. “We didn’t effort this,” Harburger says, preparing us for disappointment. “If it’s not efforted,” Silva says, mocking the campaign-speak, “then it won’t be peopled.” At the fund-raiser, another campaign aide lets slip that they did start efforting this about a month prior. But even an hour after scheduled start time, it’s still not peopled. About 15 show up in all. The hors d’oeuvres waiter makes his third round into the lobby, supplying us reporters. “I’m still on my first tray,” he says. The next day we are off to meet real people at Avenues Mall. It is mid-morning on a weekday, and only the very young, very old, and very unemployed seem to be out. As Reno heads to the food court, she is greeted by happy faces. One of the happiest belongs to Joe Castile, who wears a “Children of the Confederacy” T-shirt and a hat that says “I’m not a hunter. I’m a wildlife population control specialist.” I take Castile for a Reno voter, based on his warm reception of her, but find out quickly that he isn’t. He thinks Reno is against the Second Amendment, and Joe likes to hunt squirrel, though, he adds, “I only kill for eating.” Likewise, for what she did to Elian, Reno “should be throwed in jail.” Why then did he greet her so heartily? He explains, “She’s the first famous person I ever met.” I move on to a group of tanned college girls, who seem to have taken an unusual interest in Reno. They are from Southeastern School of Neuromuscular and Massage Therapy. And while Reno might mistake them for enthusiastic supporters, they are actually on a class assignment, observing the “dysfunction of the way people walk.” Reno, it turns out, has “restrictive movement in her upper body, her knees are locked medially, she has a high left shoulder and no spinal curve,” according to their checklists. “Of course,” says Angela Benck, “she has Parkinson’s.” But since they are only cataloguing “gait dysfunction,” they don’t bother recording that Reno’s hands sometimes shake so much that each one looks as if it’s trying to clap itself. Our walk through the mall is a habitrail of humiliation. When Reno lopes past an Elizabeth Arden counter, a make-up specialist insists she take an $88 gift box, allowing one rude reporter (okay, me) to ask what kind of campaign makeover she’d give Reno. “We try to stay very natural . . . this is Florida!” she says. At the Yankee Candle Company, Reno approaches two customers at the check-out counter. Neither the clerk nor the customers even look up. Stalled near the lemon thyme and raspberry sorbet candles, Reno turns and leaves without a word. Out in the parking lot, a final mall customer approaches her with a camera. After snapping a few shots, he insists Reno slide behind the wheel of her truck, to be more natural. Coaxing Reno out like a discount Scavullo (“Beautiful! Beautiful! That’s exactly right!), the photographer, it stands to reason, must at least be a Reno fan. But even he’s on the fence. When asked if he’ll vote for her, he hedges, “If she has the platform I’m looking for, you bet.” Back on the bus, the media prognosis is not good. “The tour is falling apart,” says one reporter. As another types out notes from the mall event, he literally giggles aloud. TWO NIGHTS LATER in Tallahassee, we seem to be in Reno country. At a black church rally sponsored by People for the American Way, it is a time warp of sorts for those of us who visited during the 2000 election. The rally’s ostensible purpose is to mark the two-year anniversary of a march protesting Bush’s affirmative-action rollback in state university admissions. But the rally degenerates into a Gore-was-robbed vinegar session. Reno attentively sits in the front row next to a lady in a complicated hat. Reno is not speaking, but we dutifully turn out anyway, for what one reporter calls “faint watch.” The meeting is not a meeting so much as a left-wing parody of one. Speakers still use expressions like “by goddess” and “Power to the people!” So off-kilter is this bunch that Alec Baldwin, who’s on the dais, isn’t even the author of the nuttiest comment (he makes an honest try by saying, “The enemies of democracy are doing push-ups while you and I are sleeping”). Instead, the Golden Nut-job trophy goes to the Honorable William Proctor, a Leon County commissioner who, it turns out, isn’t very honorable at all (he’s been prosecuted for numerous campaign finance violations). Proctor warns his audience to brace themselves for 2000 all over again. The county, he says, under the guise of anti-terrorism precautions, is already preparing to harass black voters by forcing them through checkpoints “with their hands up.” But a quick call to the supervisor of elections reveals that, in reality, “there will be no security screening at all.” As Reno leaves the church, I ask her–before the flying squirrel can bodyblock me–if she really thinks standard courthouse security is tantamount to voter intimidation. “I’m not familiar with the issues that he raised, so I don’t think I should comment till I know more,” she says. The next day at Florida A&M, the People for the American Way are at it again. Baldwin, after a long-winded speech that threatens to turn this prayer breakfast into a prayer lunch, is back to form. He calls the 2000 election “a disaster I will say to you that in some ways has done as much damage to our country as any terrorist attack.” Approaching Baldwin, I ask him to handicap the primary. “I have nothing to say about the race,” he says. When I ask what he thinks of Reno, he repeats, “I have nothing to say about the race.” Unaccustomed to such circumspection from Hollywood’s leading blowhard, I ask if he’d vote for Jeb. He leans in tight, affecting his “I-am-God” voice: “I think I’d rather get hit by a car than vote for Jeb.” Reno stalks out of the ballroom to hop a plane for a fund-raiser at former Clinton ambassador Elizabeth Bagley’s Georgetown abode (technically making the 15-day tour a 14-day tour). I ask her what she thought of all the over-the-top election animus. Her face twists up like she just ate a bad prune. After a five-second beat, she says, “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” then disappears. If a Democratic diehard like Baldwin seems reluctant to board the Reno bandwagon, he’s not alone. While Reno has picked up a few labor and teacher endorsements, the bulk of union and education plugs have already gone to McBride (who is expected also to swing the state AFL-CIO’s 122,000 members). In recent polls, McBride trails Reno badly–by as much as 43 points. But state Demo- crats are pushing him as the only viable competition for Bush, since he has no Reno-like baggage and on paper is a better match-up (McBride was a Marine platoon leader in Vietnam, and headed Florida’s largest law firm). Despite most voters’ inability to pick him out of a lineup, McBride has already out-raised Reno by several hundred thousand dollars. This is partly because of Reno’s political tone-deafness. “She doesn’t kiss anybody’s rear,” says one Democratic power broker, who says she has not properly courted fund-raisers. Republicans would like nothing better than to face Reno (“I say a little prayer for her everyday,” says former Republican chair Tom Slade). They believe her popularity has already crested 20 points behind Bush and she won’t have appeal beyond her hard-left base. But Reno, Republicans say, should spank McBride. And while McBride may be gaining traction in labor and education world (a problem for Reno, since education is her flagship issue), he is still MIA in voterland. “If McBride did a truck tour, there’d be nobody there, it’d make her look like a Roman emperor,” says one local sage. If Reno didn’t raise another cent, say many, McBride would still need somewhere between $7 million and $10 million just to buy her level of name ID. The McBride camp has a three-pronged strategy: Sweep the north, win the I-4 corridor, and cut
into Reno’s bedrock support among the condo commandos in the south, where McBride’s organization is busily at work. But even if oddsmakers give McBride little chance, bigger upsets have happened (see Bill Simon vs. Dick Riordan in California). In the event of a McBride surge, Reno better tighten things up: She’s a lackluster stumper with a sloppy organization whose truck seems to be getting tailgated by bad juju. Two days after I pulled off the trail, two women were struck by a car while walking to a Reno speaking event in Lake Worth. One is in critical condition, the other died. As for Reno’s own health, two weeks on the road would seem to silence skeptics. There are already rumors of Reno embarking on a second campaign swing in a kayak. First, she says, “I want to perfect my Eskimo roll.” “I think she’s inoculated herself on the health issue,” says Jim Krog, an influential Democratic lobbyist in Tallahassee. “But who knows? She may faint again.” Matt Labash is senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
