Closer to home, Bush's family has appeared at times to be coming unglued. His daughter Noelle continues a very public battle against drug addiction. His wife, Columba, was fined $4,000 for not paying duty on $19,000 worth of clothes she bought on a trip to Paris. Bush himself last year had to publicly deny a rumor he was having an affair with a state appointee, while his 16-year-old son Jebby was caught by police having sex with a girl inside a parked car in Tallahassee.

At the same time, challenger McBride, with a sterling business reputation and a no-nonsense character, emerged as a potential giant slayer. With the help of a crucial teachers' union endorsement, McBride rose from obscurity last spring to become the Democratic nominee this fall. In the process, he spoiled Republican plans for Bush to run against the more liberal Janet Reno.

The son of a TV repairman, McBride played running back on the University of Florida football team and then went to Vietnam, where he led a combat platoon and won a Bronze Star. Later, as a lawyer, he rose to become the high-powered, well-connected managing partner at Holland & Knight, turning the law firm into one of the largest in the country. He also lost some clients over the firm's progressive policies, such as providing benefits for domestic partners. Meanwhile, some Holland & Knight lawyers grumbled about all the pro bono work McBride insisted the firm take on.

With a famous Republican incumbent up against a plain-talking moderate who's capable of keeping "Old Florida" Democrats from crossing over to the GOP, it shouldn't be a surprise that polls for most of September and October showed the race a statistical toss-up. "Florida is such a polarized state politically, we're used to extremely close races and being at each other's throats," notes Republican strategist and lobbyist J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, who managed Bush's first run for governor in 1994.

"It's still a close race according to our internal polling," says Alan Stonecipher, a spokesman for the McBride campaign. "If people would've told us that 10 days to go we'd be within the margin of error at the end of the campaign, we'd have taken that."

Bush supporters play down any talk of an upset. Steve Uhlfelder is a Tallahassee lawyer and Florida State University trustee who went to college with McBride and worked at the same law firm, but he's backing Bush. "With less than two weeks, I don't know what Bill can do," he says. "Bush has more money, better resources, and the 2000 recount is not overshadowing the race like Bill thought it would. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the momentum shifting. Bill McBride is going to need an earthquake on a major Richter scale to win the election."

One constant in Florida politics is there's always a possible earthquake rumbling in the form of the black voter turnout. During the 2000 election, blacks who were fuming over Bush's decision to dismantle state-sponsored affirmative action came out at the major Richter scale rate of 80 percent -- and 93 percent of them voted for Al Gore. To win, McBride needs another presidential level-type turnout of 65 percent or higher, particularly in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties in South Florida to offset Bush's certain advantage upstate.

"There's a real anger in the African-American community," reports Randolf Bracy Jr., pastor of the New Covenant Baptist Church in Orlando. "The people I serve feel like the last election was stolen."

A new anger erupted this week when 200 Haitian refugees, caught trying to swim ashore in Miami, were detained for deportation. Leaders in South Florida's black community berated Bush on the campaign trail, asking him why refugees from Cuba are routinely allowed to stay in Florida, but Haitians are not. Bush enjoys strong support from Florida's conservative Cuban community.

But McBride's relationship with the black community is somewhat strained. During the primary season he essentially ignored them, conceding their votes to Reno, and worked instead to secure support in Central and Northern Florida. Since then, McBride has been traveling regularly to black churches seeking their help, but his choice of running mate, another white middle-aged lawyer, did him no favors in that community.

"There was some grousing," concedes Martin at AFSCME, which has a large minority membership. "An African-American running mate certainly would have helped."

"I don't think McBride can get the African-American turnout," says MacNamara at FSU, who notes Bush won 14 percent of the black vote in 1998, an unprecedented showing for a Republican candidate in Florida. "If Jeb wins 15 percent, McBride doesn't come close," says MacNamara. "But if Bush only gets single digits and the turnout rate is 65 percent, then they could be counting ballots into December."

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