08.08.2004

Deutsch's Senate Chances Ride on Selling his Intensity
A Potent Television Campaign and a lot of Shoe Leather will make the No. 2 Democratic Senate Candidate a Force to be Reckoned with. But Will his Aggression Impress Voters or Drive them Away?

By BETH REINHARD, The Miami Herald

It's 10:45 p.m., and U.S. Senate candidate Peter Deutsch is talking to five voters at a McDonald's in tiny Flagler County.

He still has one more campaign stop before the four-hour drive south to his home in Hollywood. Certainly an incumbent member of Congress, a contender to represent one of the nation's largest states, the leading fundraiser in the race, has better things to do.

But the silver Pontiac van lingers at the curb. Deutsch will not leave the vinyl booth until he's got the five votes.

He likes to call himself a fighter, and he fights to win.

But Deutsch is out of practice, having avoided a competitive race for 12 years. Polls show him in second place and indicate that outside of South Florida's retirement condos and affluent suburbs, many voters have never heard of him. Supporters cringe when he attacks his opponents, worried that voters will see him as a bully.

Then they add: Don't underestimate him. No one will stay up later or get up earlier, shake more hands or shake more money out of donors, drive more miles or drive more campaign staffers crazy.

He plays politics like he pinned wrestling opponents in high school. Before he even passed the bar exam, he won an astounding 64 percent in a four-way Democratic primary for the Florida House. (Deutsch doesn't do runoffs.)

At 35 years old, after a self-serving battle for a new congressional district that peaked with a near-fistfight with a colleague, he mowed down his Democratic opponent with a hard-nosed, direct-mail blitz.

A GOAL TO FULFILL

Now 47, he's still swinging, this time at Democratic rivals Betty Castor and Alex Penelas. Why expect anything else from a man who never lost an election, who spent his entire career in public office, who gave up a safe congressional seat for a shot at America's most influential political club?

"It was 100 percent the right decision, whether I win or lose,'' Deutsch said, using his typical hyperbole. ``Not to run would have been a negation of everything I've done for the past 22 years."

This is what he means: His goal has always been to improve the lives of Floridians. Senators wield more power than representatives. Therefore, he must be a senator.

Who is going to do the best job fighting for Florida for the next six years, and maybe the next 20?" he asks at every campaign stop.

His stump speech also includes a vow of universal healthcare for "every man, woman and child," hand-wringing over Florida not getting its ''fair share'' of federal aid, and swipes at President Bush over the deficit and meager prescription-drug benefits. He frequently criticizes federal restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research.

Colleagues say he's an expert on almost everything. (Deutsch thinks so, too.)

"I went to Harvard Medical School for a year, and I think he understands stem cells better than I do,'' said U.S. Rep. David Wu of Portland, Ore., who attended Yale Law School with Deutsch. "Nobody is harder working than Peter Deutsch or smarter than Peter Deutsch."

Campaign ads tout his efforts to help injured police officers, Florida fishermen after Hurricane Georges and the family of Jimmy Ryce, the 9-year-old Miami-Dade boy who was kidnapped and murdered in 1995.

He's been a loyal soldier in Democratic battles to protect Social Security and Medicare, though no major legislation bears his name. He wins top ratings from environmentalists, abortion-rights groups and unions.

Deutsch has also taken moderate positions, supporting a balanced budget amendment, restrictions on welfare benefits and measures aimed at stopping illegal immigration.

MODERATE VOTES

The candidate with a $4 million campaign account -- largely thanks to corporate interests and wealthy donors -- has cast several votes in their behalf. He has voted for protecting public companies from fraud suits and against accounting-industry reforms, for cutting capital gains taxes and against protections for poor families filing for bankruptcy.

The graduate of elite private schools wears monogrammed shirts and lives in an exclusive neighborhood. He also favors convenience store nuts and will return just about anyone's phone call. He is close to his mother and proud of his late father, the son of poor immigrants from Belarus who dragged the family on road trips to American historical landmarks.

Deutsch can be alternately brutal and lovely with his staff, reporters and other politicians. He scraps with his wife, but she says he won't let her go to bed angry. He has the audacity to attack a Democratic women's rights group supporting Castor, even though his friend formed a political committee solely to attack her.

His aggressiveness has burned more than a few political bridges. A classic example: State Sen. Steve Geller, sick with pneumonia and an oxygen tube up his nose, rolled into a 1990 legislative delegation meeting in a wheelchair to cast the vote that blocked Deutsch from becoming chairman.

"Peter at times has an almost take-no-prisoners philosophy,'' said Geller, who added that they have reconciled and that he backs Deutsch's campaign. ``The fact that Peter is as aggressive as he is can certainly work toward his advantage, but it can also work against him."

State Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of several politicians and staff members he has mentored, said, ``A little more warm and cuddly would go a long way for him. It's just that he's going 150 miles an hour and doesn't take the time to be gentle."

Deutsch wasn't always a political animal. He was a psychology major who thought about getting his doctorate or teaching history. But an inspiring political science professor, coupled with the oil crisis of 1979, stoked his interest in public policy.

"I had a revelation that politicians make decisions that affect the world, and I wanted to be part of that process," he said.

The one topic on which he does not expound is his faith. He became an observant Jew at 29 years old. He keeps the Sabbath, which means that from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday he does not talk on the phone, turn on the news or drive a car.

Such spiritual downtime seems like a challenge for a manic candidate who checks his BlackBerry e-mails in the middle of live televised debates. But he says he relishes the quality time with his wife and two children.

MAINTAINING CONTROL

Micromanaging is another ingrained habit. When one of the voters at the McDonald's says his son in Fort Lauderdale wants to work on the campaign, Deutsch insists on taking down the phone number himself. When a Volusia County activist at the next campaign stop mentions an upcoming political meeting, Deutsch writes down his address so he can mail campaign brochures to distribute.

Some politicians have a hands-on style. Deutsch's approach is hands all over.

"When a constituent would call with a complaint, he felt the need to call the Department of Insurance or the Department of Motor Vehicles himself,'' recalled Wasserman Schultz, his legislative aide in the Florida House. ``He's an I'll-get-it-donemyself-and-I'll-know-it'sdone kind of person."

That can come off as diligent or domineering. Either way voters see it, he won't lose this race for lack of trying.

"He can bounce up and down a lot more than Betty Castor and Alex Penelas,'' said U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings. "If a workhorse is what people are looking for, then Peter fits that description."

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