Reno ready for tight battle in Florida

The candidate for the Democratic nomination to wrest the Governorship of Florida from Governor Jeb Bush has no problem with voter recognition.

Six-foot one-and-a-half inches in her boots, brown-eyed, with a steely reputation, Ms Janet Reno, President Clinton's combative and controversial attorney-general, is well-known to Floridians as the "Elian woman".

Her decision to order police to seize the young Elian Gonzβlez and then hand back him back to his Cuban-based father rocked this state. It also earned her the undying enmity of the Cuban exile community. But they have only 6 per cent of the vote; many others see her decision as courageous.

Yesterday Ms Reno (63) announced her candidacy for the contest next year, turning the election into a major trial of strength between the two parties. Here, in the fourth most populous state in the Union, the presidential election was won and lost. Here the memories of disputed ballots are still bitter. Here is the chance to topple the President's brother.

Ms Reno, a former, five-times-re-elected state attorney-general returns after eight years at the Washington coalface. She is undaunted by surveys that portray her as a runaway favourite among Democrats but radioactive in what will be a hugely costly race against Mr Bush.

"Janny," as her two brothers, sister and closest friends call her, has spent the past four months wandering around Florida in a red pick-up. She set out to reconnect with her beloved home state and says she has discovered widespread discontent.

"There is something out there," she told the Orlando Sentinel. "I think there is an undercount of those who haven't voted and are turned off by politics," she says. "I'd like to encourage them back in." She is very much of the state, growing up and still living in a cypress-plank house that her mother built on the edge of the Miami Everglades. The family has its roots in Europe. Her grandfather, Robert Rasmussen, a Danish immigrant before World War I, wanted a more American name. So he picked Reno, as in Nevada.

He moved the family to Florida, where he became chief photographer for the Miami Herald. His son, Henry Olaf Reno, started as crime correspondent in 1924 and worked there for 43 years.

Ms Reno is a hate figure on the right because of her liberal stance on issues like abortion and gun control and, not least, her decision in 1993 to order the storming of the Branch Davidians base in Waco, Texas, when 75 died in the ensuing fire.

She is also likely to face Republican claims that her mild Parkinson's disease, diagnosed first in 1995, will inhibit he ability to do the job.

Polls seem to show that it is not of concern to voters. It should make for a fascinating election.