MIAMI, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- All nine Democratic presidential candidates head for Florida's state party convention this weekend as polls show President Bush has an edge on each of them but is not unbeatable in the state.
Florida's key role in the 2000 election may be repeated in 2004, according to Rob Schroth of Schroth & Associates, which conducted the poll along with the Polling Company for the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times.
"This poll conclusively demonstrates that Florida once again is in play," Schroth said in an analysis for the two newspapers.
"The president's popularity is tenuous, even vulnerable, and it will take another year to sort out whether he can carry this state again," Schroth said.
The state Democratic Convention will draw 3,000 delegates to Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., Friday through Sunday. Eight of the candidates will speak and answer questions Saturday, and the ninth, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., will appear Sunday.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., will be honored at a banquet Saturday night. He was a presidential candidate until he dropped out of the race earlier this year and later announced his retirement after three terms in the Senate.
He could surface again next year, however, as a vice presidential candidate.
Graham's departure from the race had spurred talk of a presidential straw poll, since he would have been expected to dominate it as a candidate.
Advocates of the straw poll had argued that the March 9 date for the state's primary will make Florida irrelevant to the primary season. They believe that with primaries or caucuses in 28 other states will make the choice of the candidate a foregone conclusion.
The popularity poll was as good as scheduled despite the opposition of the nine candidates who said it was too expensive in terms of time and money for the value it provides.
The Democratic National Committee said it did not want to drain resources from the later contests and convinced Florida Democrats of its wisdom.
The Central Committee voted Nov. 16 to scrap the idea, at least for this campaign.
Vice President Al Gore managed to escape without a straw ballot in 1999 for the same reasons. The Gore campaign said it would cost $150,000 to court delegate votes it could better spend elsewhere and convinced the Florida party to skip it.
There hasn't been a Democratic straw vote in Florida in 12 years, but the poll has had an impact in the past. It provided the Bill Clinton campaign its first real boost in 1991. It also helped the candidacies of Jimmy Carter in 1975 and Walter Mondale in 1983.
The current candidates are happy that there is no straw vote, but that doesn't mean they have lost interest in Florida, the nation's biggest swing state with 27 electoral votes.
Friday's poll results only enhanced that interest.
It showed that 53 percent of the respondents approved of Bush's performance vs. 42 percent who did not, with 5 percent who didn't have an opinion.
But it was a dead heat at 47 percent on the job the president is doing at handling the economy. As for Iraq, 49 percent approved while 47 percent did not.
Among the 800 Floridians polled, 43 percent said they would vote for Bush, 37 percent would vote for the Democratic candidate, 14 percent didn't know and 6 percent would vote for some other candidate.
As for the race among the Democratic candidates, it's almost a dead heat among Lieberman, the early favorite, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark.
Dean had 16 percent and Clark and Lieberman scored 15 percent. Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., collected 8.5 percent, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was at 6 percent and the remainder trailed at 3 percent or less.
The biggest loser was apparently Lieberman, who had been considered the heir apparent to Graham when he dropped out of the race. Lieberman trailed Bush by 11 points.
"For the vice presidential nominee of 2000, that's really surprising," said pollster Kellyanne Conway of the Polling Company.
But Lieberman's campaign pointed out he was gaining ground elsewhere, including New Hampshire.
"Senator Lieberman isn't taking a single vote for granted," said campaign spokesman Jano Cabrera. "He appreciates the strong support in Florida but knows he has to work for every vote."
Schroth & Associates polls for Democrats, and the Polling Company polls for Republicans. The statewide survey covered 800 registered voters and has a margin of plus or minus 3.5 percent. The margin for the Democratic poll was 5.3 points.
