08.03.2004

Deutsch Channels Hard-Charging Style Into Senate Campaign

By KEITH EPSTEIN, Tampa Tribune

FORT LAUDERDALE - Peter Deutsch dated with unusual impatience.

"Most guys don't discuss marriage, not on the first date," recalls his wife, Lori. "But he told me, 'I'm dating to get married. And yes, I want kids. This is what else I want in life.' Then he asked me lots of questions.

There was no wasting time. There were no games over who was calling who. We talked and talked, and there was a decision."

They were engaged within four months. They have been married for 14 years.

Deutsch, 47, has been a South Florida congressman for 12 of those years, and these days he's employing the same intense efficiency in pursuit of another ambition - to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Miami Lakes.

Deutsch gave up his safe seat to fight fellow Democrats for the nomination because he is convinced senators have more power than representatives to effect change.

As with settling on a mate, the race was something he approached methodically.

He asked questions. He weighed risks and opportunities. He interviewed 23 former associates in the House who had gone on to the Senate: Were they happier? Did they get more done?

Finally, he reached his conclusion with a mathematical calculation.

"I figured I had a 50 percent chance of winning, while the position would give me 1,500 times the chances of influencing the future," he said in a recent interview. "With that analysis, I had to run."

"Every morning, I wake up and think about running for the Senate."

Man In Motion

Wake up? It's difficult to tell whether he ever went to sleep.

Deutsch claims to snooze four or five hours a night, but he sustains energy levels that make that hard to believe. He exerts such control over slumber that he suddenly may announce, in conversation between campaign events, that he's dozing off for a bit.

Five minutes later, he'll spring to life apparently refreshed, resuming the chat as if it never left his mind.

"It's unreal. He's a machine,'' said Phillip Drujak, a young political science graduate who drives him along the campaign trail. "I wish I had that motivation."

Powered by caffeine from many daily Diet Cokes, Deutsch spent a typical 18 hours one day last week in meetings with union electrical workers, black church leaders, local politicians, the editors of two newspapers, and health care providers whose community clinics he toured in Jacksonville and Orlando. He also did a television interview.

When he retired at midnight, it wasn't to sleep; he went online for news and e-mail.

Assistants who stay with Deutsch - and not all do - tend to be fatigued but inspired.

"My parents wonder how he gets so much out of me," Drujak mused, "when they can't even get me to take out the garbage.

Formative Experiences

Deutsch traces his drive to his late father, the son of poor immigrants from Belarus, who became successful in manufacturing and construction. Arthur Leo Deutsch taught his son to work hard and ``fulfill your potential to help other people," the congressman said.

Young Peter, born in the Bronx, N.Y., went with his father on "American history trips" to Boston, Fort Ticonderoga and Gettysburg.

"I don't think I've ever met anyone who went to Albany just to see the Capitol. Well, I did," he said. The lesson during those trips was that the Deutsches "were blessed to be in this country; we should give back."

Not that Arthur Deutsch let sentiment cloud his sight. When his son headed off for a law degree at Yale, the older man said: ``You'll meet lots of smart people and learn a lot about the law, but remember you're better off knowing the judge than the law."

During his third year of law school, Yale offered what Deutsch called a ``guilt program'' for privileged students to work for the public good. He chose Brian Sherr's Jewish senior services organization in Broward County, where the Deutsch family had moved because of real estate investments.

Deutsch quickly proved himself capable of helping elders, especially with problems involving Medicare. He found a crusade in the issue of nursing home evictions and won a seat in the Legislature in 1982, at age 25.

He has been running for office ever since.

Making A Difference

Sherr remembers being impressed by the gung-ho style of the former high school wrestler. When Deutsch ``latches onto something, he is hell on wheels,'' Sherr said.

But the politician's compassion also made an impression.

"He came down here from Yale and never looked for a dime," said Sherr, now a wealthy real estate lawyer in Fort Lauderdale. "Do you have any idea what economic opportunities are available to people with his brass?"

Marcus Jadotte, Deutsch's former chief of staff, agrees.

"He could be doing anything and making a better living," said Jadotte, deputy campaign manager for presidential candidate John Kerry. "Instead, he's trying to make a difference. He is driven. He's a fighter."

That can result in some pain. Even Deutsch's friends acknowledge he has more than his share of foes.

"The path Peter takes sometimes is the one of the most resistance, and as a result he knocks some people over," said state Sen. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former aide who regards Deutsch as a mentor and is running to replace him in Congress.

"He marches to his own drummer," she said. "He'll go over, under, around or through you, but he's going to get to his goal."

Challenging His Rivals

Deutsch's combativeness showed up early in the current campaign, when he repeatedly accused rival Democrat Alex Penelas, the mayor of Miami- Dade County, of turning on their own party in the final weeks of the 2000 presidential race.

Penelas, whose constituency includes Republican Cuban-Americans hostile to nominee Al Gore, abandoned Gore down the stretch and "made all the difference" by not encouraging Democratic voters, Deutsch said.

Gore agrees; Penelas has denied it.

More recently, Deutsch has lambasted the other major Democrat in his race, Tampa's Betty Castor, accusing the former University of South Florida president of failure for merely suspending a professor accused of supporting terrorism against Israel.

"There's the epitome of evil,'' he railed, ``and she's just standing by."

Castor maintains she did what she could at the time based on the evidence.

Deutsch differentiates her behavior from his during the election aftermath four years ago, when he was visible during the presidential vote recount and became the first congressman to protest congressional certification of the tally.

"Unlike Betty, I saw something wrong and got engaged immediately," he said.

His approach leaves opponents eager to return fire.

Deutsch has been criticized for not voting to bar accounting firms from auditing and consulting with the same corporation, considering he has taken $128,000 in campaign money from accounting interests since 2003.

He also has been faulted for the amount of money he gets from out of state, such as $103,000 from the law firm Kasowitz, Benson in New York. Its clients have interests that overlap issues of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on which he sits.

Then there are questions about whether a letter he wrote on behalf of a pharmaceutical company improperly aided the company and added thousands of dollars to his campaign.

Deutsch denies putting corporate interests ahead of the common good, attributes the law firm support to a Yale chum who's a partner there, and contends the pharmaceutical case was about fighting for lower consumer costs.

"I was so on the side of angels," he said.

Importance Of Faith

Deutsch acknowledges his blemishes - mostly impatience, in his view. He makes little attempt to hide his unpolished side. A reporter traveling with him can share the back seat of his wife's cramped Audi A6 Quattro with a pillow, the candidate's extra dress clothes, frayed newspapers, state maps and an inspirational cassette with tips from the Torah on addressing ``The Challenge of Anger."

In representing one of the nation's most densely Jewish populations, Deutsch often attracts attention for his religious beliefs. Voters wonder about the deeply personal ``crisis of faith'' that caused him to become a more observant Jew 18 years ago.

He spent months consulting rabbis, studying the Torah, even going on forays to Israel to learn more about Judaism.

He keeps kosher, won't travel or use the phone on the Sabbath, which extends from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday, and will make last-minute calls not only to political but to spiritual advisers - seeking assurance that he's not breaking rules of the faith.

"I look at the world through a traditional Jewish view,'' he said. "If God wants me to win, I'll win. I'll put all the effort I can into it, but ultimately it's out of my control. I'm a steward of God's will."

Affecting `Real People'

In his secular life, Deutsch keeps up with modern polling strategies and political uses of the Internet.

At the start of the campaign, "I actually did a Lexis-Nexis search of my entire life," he said. "I went through everything I did. It was stacked up to here, in binders and boxes."

The result of the research - a television ad campaign - is designed to show him affecting the lives of Floridians. He's proudest of his work in seeking Everglades restoration, benefits for fishermen wiped out by a hurricane, and preventive benefits from Medicare, such as coverage for mammograms.

"I gauge my success by my impact on people,'' he said. In the ads, ``they're not actors; they're real people with real stories."

Every statewide candidate grapples with how to reach 17 million Floridians, many of whom haven't heard of the candidate, in a matter of weeks. Deutsch has $4.5 million on hand to promote himself, more than any other candidate of any party in the race.

His ads are meant to stand out from those of his rivals.

"I could be in her commercials," he said of Castor. "Alex Penelas could be in her commercials. We're all for the environment. We're all for better health care. We're all for education and against crime.

"I think people are more sophisticated in the way they view it. They want someone who is actually trying to improve the lives of real people."

The Constant Quest

Deutsch learned from President Clinton, he said, the importance of interacting with voters even in opposition territory, so they "can't demonize you."

That's how a product of Judaism, New York and Yale who favors shirts monogrammed with "PRD" can revel in attending a mullet fry in Pensacola, where he was grilled about his stances on gun control (for), abortion (he's pro- choice), and gay marriage (for).

"Do you really want criminals to have guns?" he asked the crowd. "Do you really care if the paramedic who shows up at your door in an emergency is gay?"

He likes to challenge people to consider all the issues on which they might agree.

Deutsch recently toured community health clinics across the state, listening more than talking. The goal was to build bridges that could help later, especially in giving examples of the value of expanding health coverage to all Americans, his premier goal.

In Jacksonville, where a clinic provides volunteer care for 600 uninsured patients, Deutsch praised urologist James Burt but said: ``What you're doing is the safety net as it exists in America now. There are so many people you're not catching."

His allies say the ceaseless questing to learn and achieve is what defines Deutsch.

The way he wooed his wife, they say, is the way he woos voters. "He was constantly talking," Lori Deutsch said of that courtship long ago. "When he wants something, he just goes after it - and he's tenacious."

Last modified: August 03. 2004 11:09AM

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