The Guardian, UK Jeb may throw in Florida towel

Rumours hit governorship of President Bush's brother

Martin Kettle in Washington

Thursday May 10, 2001, The Guardian Political circles in Florida are buzzing with rumours that Jeb Bush may be on the point of deciding against running for re-election as the state governor next year, amid much innuendo about his private life and his marriage.

Any decision by President George Bush's younger brother to step down - in the state that was at the centre of the disputed recount that followed last year's US presidential election - would have political consequences for the Republican cause across the country.

Jeb Bush fanned the political speculation about his future this week when he told a newspaper in Tallahassee, the state capital, that he was not going to decide whether to run until next month. Mr Bush was elected governor of Florida in 1998 and is up for re-election in November 2002.

"I'm going to decide in June," Mr Bush said. "There's lots of time. I plan to sit down with my wife and decide whether or not I want to keep the best job in the world."

This hint of doubt followed an interview last year in which the Florida governor said his decision would depend on whether running for a second term was right for his family.

The issue caught fire again at the weekend when a prominent political journalist with the Chicago Sun-Times, Robert Novak - a nationally syndicated conservative columnist with excellent Republican sources - wrote that "well placed Florida Republicans" believed there was "a real chance" that Mr Bush would not seek a second term.

"Bush was an easy winner in 1998, but the bitter Florida recount eroded his popularity," Mr Novak wrote in his column. "Speculation about 2002 also centres on family troubles experienced by the president's brother."

Jeb Bush hit back: "Bob Novak doesn't know what he's talking about."

Several Florida newspapers have, like Mr Novak, made cryptic references to possible family troubles. The Tallahassee Democrat noted on Tuesday that Mr Bush and his Mexican-born wife Columba "are not regularly seen in Tallahassee social circles".

In another report, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that "some say the governor's wife Columba Bush does not like living in Tallahassee, does not like being [the state's] first lady and doesn't want her husband to run again. She appears with Bush infrequently and is said to spend a lot of time in Miami."

This week, an alternative internet political site called Media Whores Online has twice run stories about the Florida speculation, alongside prominent stories about Cynthia Henderson, 38, a former Playboy bunny turned lawyer, whom Jeb Bush appointed last year as head of Florida's department of management services. This is not her first appointment by Mr Bush. When he was first elected governor he named her to a post in the Florida professional regulation department. "Jeb has gone out of his way to protect Cyndi," the website quoted a co-worker as saying.

Whether or not Mr Bush does run for re-election, the contest for the governorship of Florida is already shaping up to become the premier grudge match of the 2002 mid-term elections across America.

Democrats are focusing all their political efforts into an attempt to recapture the Florida governorship from Mr Bush, hoping that a victory would cast further doubt over the legitimacy of George Bush's presidential election win in the state over the Democrats' candidate, Al Gore.

The current frontrunner to be the Democratic challenger in Florida in November 2002 in Pete Peterson, who is finishing his term as the Clinton administration's ambassador to Vietnam

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2001