VP candidates hit Florida as bosses prepare for debate By Brigitte Greenberg, Associated Press, 10/17/00 ORLANDO, Fla. -- Call it the running mates' second debate. Though they didn't share a stage, Joseph Lieberman and Dick Cheney campaigned a few miles apart in this crucial election state Tuesday, each contending his party's ticket was best for Florida and the country. Former Defense Secretary Cheney maintained that he and Texas Gov. George W. Bush would do more to strengthen the military. Lieberman argued that he and Vice President Al Gore would be the best stewards of the economy. "In America, when economic growth occurs, it occurs in the private sector. Government doesn't create jobs. Government, at its best, can create the environment in which growth will occur," Lieberman, the Democrat, told more than 5,000 information technology professionals at a convention here. Lieberman, a senator from Connecticut, said government's role is to maintain a balanced budget, demonstrate fiscal restraint, promote free trade and invest in research and education. He picked up the endorsement of some 440 technology and Internet business leaders, who credited Gore and him with fostering growth of high-tech industries. The endorsement came from executives of Netscape, Xerox, Qualcomm, Apple and Novel, among others. "We understand that the boom we're enjoying in America didn't happen by accident," said John Doerr, a partner with the venture capital firm of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers. "While it was driven by smart, risk-taking entrepreneurs all over the country, the current administration and Senator Lieberman played an integral part in allowing this to happen." At a rally in nearby Kissimmee, Cheney focused on strengthening U.S. defense -- his signature theme -- saying the GOP ticket would repair a military weakened by years of neglect under the administration of Gore and President Clinton. "Bottom line is, the U.S. military is not in as good a shape as it was eight years ago," Cheney said. "It might still be the best in the world, I don't deny that, but the trends are in the wrong direction." Cheney's campaign again drew on memories of terrorist attacks on Americans to call attention to the GOP ticket's assertion that the military has become weaker under Clinton and Gore. He was introduced by Mary Higgins, a Florida state veterans' affairs official who recalled that Cheney spoke at a ceremony when the body of her husband, Col. William Higgins, a Marine captured and killed by terrorists in Lebanon in 1989, was returned to the United States in 1991. "His words at the honors ceremony ... would be the very same today as we sadly greet our sailors home from the USS Cole," said Higgins, referring to those killed in the bombing of a Navy ship in Yemen. Cheney continued the theme at events later in the day. "Al Gore either doesn't know what the state of the U.S. military is today, or he has chosen not to tell the truth about it," he said at a town hall in a packed gym at Central Florida Community College in Ocala. Cheney invoked memories of the 1980 American hostage crisis in Iran during a campaign speech Monday and has pointed to the ship bombing as a reminder that the U.S. military faces threats. The Gore campaign has accused Bush and Cheney of trying to use the attack for political advantage. Gore and Lieberman believe "we shouldn't talk about the state of the U.S. military during the course of the presidential campaign. But I can't think of a better time to talk about it," Cheney said Tuesday. Polls here have Gore and Bush running neck-and-neck for Florida's 25 electoral votes. Analysts have called the state a must-win for Bush because, besides Texas, most of the states in his column have relatively few electoral votes. Gore, meanwhile, could move a long way toward election with a win in Florida because two other vote-rich states, New York and California, appear to be solidly behind him. Cheney was watching Tuesday night's presidential debate with his boss' brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in Tallahassee. Lieberman planned to be inside the debate hall in St. Louis. Lieberman said he was shocked to awaken Tuesday to the news that Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan had died in a plane crash on the eve of the debate. He said, "It puts everything that goes on in a political campaign into perspective."