Yet a statewide survey of voters shows only one person can decisively defeat President Bill Clinton in Florida, and that person is not a declared republican candidate.
Concert 90's Bobbie O'Brien has more on the poll of voter preferences and moods conducted for the Voices of Florida -- a coalition of public radio, six newspapers and 11 television stations including WUSF-FM, the St. Petersburg Times and WTSP-TV, Channel 10.
Retired general Colin Powell is a certain victor when matched head to head against President Bill Clinton in a state-wide survey of Florida voters taken in late October.
Even though Powell is not a declared presidential candidate, he thrashes Clinton by 47 to 33 percent. Ann Selzer is a campaign pollster.
"The reason Colin Powell wins over Bill Clinton is that he draws a sizable percentage of democrats who would support him. About one out of three democrats say they would support Colin Powell -- which is an equal percentage of those who are not currently affiliated with either party. So that, to me, is strong democratic support for Colin Powell."Clinton's next closest competition comes from Senator Bob Dole, where the Voices of Florida poll shows a neck and neck race, with Clinton getting 40 percent and Dole 38 percent of the general electorate.
And while only Powell appears capable of handily beating Clinton, Florida republicans still prefer Dole over Powell by 8 percent.
When picking from a field of 7 republican candidates, 30 percent of the republicans selected Dole and 22 percent opted for Powell.
The other republican candidates were in single digits, including Senator Phil Gramm and Governor Lamar Alexander, who have campaigned heavily in the state.
But more than a quarter of the republicans are still uncertain of who they will vote for in the March primary.
Without a challenge from Powell, however, Dole appears to have the Florida republican nomination sewn up.
The survey, conducted for the Voices of Florida coalition, also tapped the mood of Florida voters, and found dissatisfaction with the direction of the country, a lack of confidence in government and a frustration with the slow progress on health care, crime, education and a balanced budget.
When asked to rank who is to blame, more than two-thirds of the voters pointed their finger at lobbyists, special interest groups, the media and Congress. Yet pollster Selzer found one surprise.
"What I found significant is that the president is at the way bottom of the list. Voters are about twice as likely to blame Congress as they are president."Selzer also found that immigration is not a boiling issue with voters. Yet when asked directly about their attitudes, 64 percent of all Florida voters said it is a major problem for the state, prompting Selzer to examine specific problems related to immigration.
"Two of the issues that we tested had to do with language problems. One of the proposals is to require all government workers to speak comprehensible English. This was favored by 91 percent of Florida voters, and that included 75 percent of the Hispanic community, and 84 percent of those who were foreign-born. There's a very strong sense in this state that seems to be running against the trend towards bilingualism."Tampa's Ybor City is an example of how other cultures have influenced the growth of Florida. Immigrants from Cuba, Spain and Italy settled here in the early 1900s.
Now, in the 1990s, that diversity attracts tourists to events like this recent food fair, Taste of Ybor.
That's where we found Linda Wilcox, proprietor of the Blues Ship Cafe, hawking her southern cuisine of smoked ribs, greens, red beans and rice.
We asked Wilcox if she had any comments for the candidates.
"Use the common sense that God gave us. Most in government don't. They make up rules, and they make stupid rules, and they don't use common sense, it's as simple as that. You see it all over the world. In city government everywhere, they just don't use common sense. Especially in the restaurant business, where I've been, you have all kinds of government: you got occupational license, you got accounting license, you got sales tax, you got a surcharge tax if you have a liquor license, you got a restaurant department. Every year they add something new, and you don't know about it until you gotta pay for it."As a businesswoman and a mother of an 11-year-old daughter, Wilcox also has strong feelings about welfare reform.
Wilcox: "Everybody needs to work for what they get. That's how I feel."In the days leading up the state republican straw vote, Presidency Three, the Voices of Florida coalition will more closely examine several issues identified by voters as their top concerns.
O'Brien: "So you're in favor of welfare reform?"
Wilcox: "Yes, definitely so, definitely so. Nobody should get any free money at all, unless you're too old to work or sick. If you get $200 a month, you should do $200 worth of work for it. That's how I feel."
I'm Bobbie O'Brien, reporting.