Lieberman to give his views on Cuba

 BY MARK SILVA

 Old friends divided by a presidential campaign will assemble privately today at
 Miami's Freedom Tower to talk about the future of Cuba.

 Democratic running mate Joseph Lieberman will meet with members of the Cuban
 American National Foundation, whose leader personally has endorsed Republican
 rival George W. Bush.

 ``The long and short of it is the relationship,'' Karl Koch, a senior consultant for Al
 Gore's presidential campaign, said of Lieberman's meeting today with foundation
 President Pepe Hernández and other leaders. ``One of the things Pepe
 Hernández wanted to do was give Joe Lieberman a chance to speak with
 members of the Cuban-American community.''

 Although foundation Chairman Jorge Mas has endorsed Bush, and the foundation
 itself will refrain from any endorsement in the election, today's meeting between
 Lieberman and as many as 40 leaders of the Cuban community should not be
 taken as a campaign event, Hernández says.

 Rather, Hernández says, it is an opportunity for ``an old friend'' to explain to
 community leaders how an administration run by Democrat Al Gore might
 address Cuban freedom.

 ``We are not going to talk about the campaign. We are going to talk about Cuba,''
 Hernández said Sunday. ``We already know what has happened with an
 administration in which Gore is the second person, and no Cuban person can be
 satisfied with the actions of the current administration.''

 Lieberman, in a letter to Hernández dated Oct. 20, praised the foundation's
 ``important role in focusing our continued attention on the need to bring
 democracy and freedom to the people of Cuba.

 ``My voting record is clear, and my dedication to these goals is and will remain
 unwavering,'' Lieberman wrote to Hernández.

 In Florida, the biggest ``toss-up state'' entering the final two weeks of the
 presidential campaign, both the Gore and Bush campaigns are concentrating this
 week on critical regions, including South Florida, to focus on turning supporters
 out to vote.

 Lieberman will campaign today among Jewish Democratic supporters in Aventura
 and court support among black voters with a rally at the North Campus of
 Miami-Dade Community College. Bush's brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, is leading a
 team of Republican governors on a tour of South Florida today.

 Lieberman plans an afternoon meeting at the Freedom Tower, a landmark that the
 late Jorge Más Canosa, founder of the Cuban American National Foundation,
 purchased for renovation. Mas was a friend and financial supporter of Lieberman's
 Senate campaigns.

 ``Joe Lieberman is a very old friend,'' said Hernández, who is refraining from any
 personal endorsement in the presidential campaign. ``I am very proud to be able
 to say that we were somehow instrumental in his first Senate campaign.''

 Jeb Bush will campaign at a pharmacy this morning with Pennsylvania's Tom
 Ridge and New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman in Republican vote-rich North
 Palm Beach and dispatch the governors on their own to Miami's Little Havana in
 the afternoon, part of a two-day statewide Florida tour.

 Bush also will join his brother this week in a bus tour of pivotal Central Florida.

 ``Florida is indeed still a toss-up state. Florida remains a battleground,'' Bush aide
 Ari Fleischer said. ``We do feel very strongly, though, that Florida is going to be a
 place where Al Gore invested a lot of time and money and it will not pay off.''

 The Gore campaign is stepping up its investment in Florida this week with
 Spanish-language TV ads airing in Miami, Orlando and Tampa -- matching a
 Republican TV ad-buy on Spanish-languages stations.

 Telephone and direct-mail campaigns are in high gear, with the Democratic
 National Committee preparing taped phone calls from President Clinton urging
 people to get out to vote.

 The Bush campaign is challenging a brochure that the Florida Democratic Party
 has mailed to Floridians comparing the candidates' plans for prescription drugs for
 the elderly.

 ``No one should have to decide between filling their grocery cart or filling their
 prescriptions,'' declares the party mailer, touting Gore's plans for seniors as
 ``affordable'' and warning that Bush's plan ``leaves out millions'' and ``forces
 seniors into HMOs.''

 The Bush campaign claims the brochure distorts both candidates' plans, and
 Republican leaders complain that Gore is waging a traditional ``Medi-Scare''
 campaign in Florida.

 ``It's the same scaring seniors,'' said U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Lake Worth,
 dispatched by the campaign to combat the mailer. ``There are people concerned
 about this issue, and I don't think it should be who can out-fox the other side. . . .
 Choosing between food and prescriptions, that's not what every senior is doing.''

 The Democratic Party, planning to match the GOP dollar-for-dollar in TV ads in
 Florida and 18 other states through Election Day, also is airing a new round of
 ads challenging Bush's stance on Social Security. Gore maintains that Bush's
 plan to let younger workers invest some of the Social Security tax privately will
 either jeopardize benefits for seniors or drive taxes up.

 ``In short, we believe the election will be decided on the issues,'' Gore campaign
 spokesman Doug Hattaway said Sunday. Social Security, he says, is big. ``We
 think it's going to be a major factor as the campaign comes down to the wire
 here.''

 Florida holds nearly one-tenth the electoral votes needed to name the next
 president. The Florida crescent framed by populous regions reaching from Tampa
 Bay, across Central Florida and into Southeast Florida, represents the critical
 territory of the fight for the fourth-largest state.

 The Republican nominee will make a bus tour of a swing-voting ``I-4 corridor,''
 arriving for a rally in Jacksonville Tuesday evening and traveling Wednesday by
 bus from Daytona Beach to Brandon, near Tampa, with his Florida
 governor-brother and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

 Opinion polls have portrayed a dead heat in the belt of Central Florida from Tampa
 to Daytona Beach connected by Interstate 4. Jeb Bush has been encouraging his
 brother to campaign by bus -- also the hallmark of a maverick GOP primary
 campaign run by McCain, onetime Bush rival.

 Just as critical for the Democratic ticket are the big three counties of South
 Florida: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, holding 30 percent of the state's
 registered Democratic voters -- all three places where President Clinton prevailed
 in both of his elections, 1992 and 1996.

 In South Florida today, Lieberman plans a noon rally for supporters at the
 Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center at 20400 NE 30th Ave. and a 6 p.m. rally at the
 Collins Center on the North Campus of Miami-Dade Community College, 11380
 NW 27th Ave. Tickets are available for the college event.

 The traveling Republican governors for Bush -- part of a three-day, 25-state tour
 involving 28 governors -- will arrive at the Little Havana Activity Center, 700 SW
 Eighth St., at 1 p.m. today.

 They will leave for Fort Myers today and Tampa and Jacksonville on Tuesday.