Janet Reno to Stand in Election for Florida State Governor
MIAMI, Sept 4 (News Agencies) - Former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno announced Tuesday she will stand as a Democratic candidate in elections for the Florida governor's seat, a post currently held by Republican Jeb Bush, brother of U.S. President George W. Bush.
"I'm running for governor," the 63-year-old Reno told reporters.
Reno, who was attorney general to former president Bill Clinton between 1993 and January 2001, said she had opened an account in Florida's state capital Tallahassee allowing her to raise funds for her election campaign.
The Florida election, slated for November 2002, is considered by analysts as an attempt by the Democrats to get revenge after the furor over the highly controversial Florida results in last year's November presidential elections.
George W. Bush was finally announced as the winner with a slim majority of 537 votes, from six million cast in Florida, over his Democratic rival Al Gore.
The 2002 election in Florida is expected to be a test of the president's popularity.
Miami-born Reno will first have to win Democratic primaries before she is officially declared an official rival to Jeb Bush - who already announced his intention to stand again for state governor.
Another Democrat who will be facing off against Reno is Pete Peterson, former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam. According to an August poll, however, Reno is the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, though Jeb Bush would beat her 54%-39% if the election were held today.
Reno is blamed by a key segment of south Florida's voters, the Cuban-American community, for the outcome of the Elian Gonzalez case.
Elian, who was rescued from the sea in late 1999 and kept by his ardently anti-Castro Miami-based relatives, was finally returned to his father, who lives in Cuba, in June 2000 to the outrage of Florida's Cuban-Americans.
