Republicans say they are merely focusing on precincts Democrats won by large margins in 2000. Spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher accused Meek of concocting controversies to stir the Democratic base. "It's the 15th, 16th or 17th thing they've come up with that is just all wrong," she said.
Many of the concerns about long lines on Election Day -- and the voters they might discourage -- have been fed by television footage of giant turnouts for early voting. More than 1.8 million people have voted early or by absentee ballot, nearly 20 percent of the state's 10.3 million voters. One woman in an early-voting line in Tampa said she had gotten automated calls from Kerry, actor Danny DeVito, Jesse L. Jackson and Bill Clinton, though she had to hang up on the former president's recording because her mother clicked in on call waiting.
Some have waited more than three hours to cast early ballots, and there have been reports of pizza deliveries being made to people waiting in line and of couriers standing in lines at election offices to deliver absentee ballots. Early voting has favored Democrats, but Republicans are enthused by a 2 to 1 advantage for white, Republican voters over black, Democratic voters in early ballots cast in Duval County, where the city of Jacksonville and its large block of African American voters is critical to Democrats.
"If we had turned out more of our base the last time, we would have done a lot more to eliminate the deficit" in the popular vote, said Wallace Klussman, a member of the Texas Strike Force, a group campaigning for Bush in Jacksonville.
Operatives on both sides are obsessing over Florida's Hispanic vote, and the angling to appeal to Spanish speakers is intense. "No Mas Bush" bumper stickers are in such demand that they are approaching collectible status. Kerry chanted the slogan Friday in downtown Miami and delivered several lines in Spanish: "Esta es la eleccion mas importante de nuestras vidas," he said. (This is the most important election of our lives.) The president, who often incorporates Spanish into campaign appearances, told a crowd Sunday in Coral Gables, scene of the first presidential debate, that they should vote to retain first lady Laura Bush, whom he described as "bella," beautiful.
Calle Ocho, where men in guayaberas lean into roadside windows for cups of cafe Cubano, is mockingly referred to as "the Berlin Wall" by political activists in Miami these days. Republicans clump on one side at Cafe Versailles, the city's most famous Cuban restaurant, and Democrats gather at the Kerry campaign office across the street, hoping to peel off a few votes from traditionally Republican Cuban American voters angry about new policies restricting family travel to the island.
"There are some closet Democrats over there," said Lourdes Cantilla, nodding her head across the crowded boulevard in the heart of Little Havana.
Democrats hope the influx of Puerto Ricans to the Orlando area will act as a counterweight to what is still expected to be a heavily GOP vote in parts of South Florida. Puerto Ricans typically vote for Democrats, but Republicans have tried to steer support to the president by placing three Puerto Rican candidates on the ballot for state and local offices.
But they have not convinced Norma Alvarez, who moved to Florida a year ago from Puerto Rico. Alvarez, sipping coffee at her sister's Orlando home, said she fears for her son who is in the U.S. Army and will go to Afghanistan in March. "I'm very worried about a lot of things that are going on -- the war, the economy, health," she said. "Life is getting harder."
Much of the work to find disaffected voters, such as Alvarez, is done by out-of-state volunteers.
Juanita Brown, who had the words "Kerry Si!" painted on her arm, voted early in California and flew to Florida to encourage women to vote. She watched Bruce Springsteen sing "Promised Land" and the Kerry campaign anthem "No Surrender" next to her mother, Millie Cowan, who left the mountains of North Carolina to vote near her winter home in Florida. "This is the most important election in my lifetime," Cowan, 83, said at the raucous rally.
Doug McGregor, Florida coordinator for the College Republican National Committee, wanted to witness one of his candidate's last big Florida events, too. But he started thinking that he might be able to win the election himself by persuading 50 Bush supporters to vote in the same time it would have taken him to attend the president's rally at Tinker Field in Orlando.
"I was torn," he said. With time slipping away he had to make a choice. He went after the 50 voters.
Russakoff reported from Tampa and Orlando. Staff writer Darryl Fears contributed to this report from Jacksonville.
