miami.com
Gov. Jeb Bush blasted slot machines in a South Florida campaign swing against the referendums, warning crime rates will spike and Miami-Dade and Broward counties won't see promised benefits.
Barnstorming South Florida as if his name were on the ballot, Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday took his ''guerrilla'' campaign against slot machines to business leaders, seniors and legions of Spanish radio listeners, urging voters to reject the lure of gambling.
Deriding the machines as ''one-armed bandits'' in English, and ``tragamonedas'' -- money eaters -- in Spanish, Bush ridiculed the push by the gambling industry to bring Las Vegas style slot machines to seven area race tracks and jai-alai frontons in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
''The idea that somehow people are going to travel from all over the world dressed up in tuxedoes and wanting to play baccarat, whatever we see in James Bond movies, it's a joke,'' Bush said, charging that the facilities will prey on the poor, spark a rise in crime and leave the two host counties footing the bill.
''This is going to be paid for by people of moderate means and lower incomes. They're the ones who will pay the taxes that will go upstate and it just breaks my heart,'' he said.
Waging a last-minute campaign against the initiative, which goes before voters in the two counties on Tuesday, Bush acknowledged he's late to the game, but insisted there's still time.
The one-day blitz took Bush to familiar territory -- wading into a senior center in West Miami to wow los abuelos -- and to some virgin ground: sharing the microphone at a Coral Gables business breakfast at the Biltmore Hotel with Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, a staunch Democrat who last fall was featured in campaign ads bashing the Republican governor's elder brother, President Bush.
MILLIONS SPENT
The seven facilities have spent millions pushing the initiative and appeared rattled by the intervention of the popular governor. They packed a meeting room at the Biltmore with dog-track workers to decry what they called a ``campaign of confusion and fear.''
The industry argues that South Florida is already awash with gambling at Indian casinos and aboard cruises to nowhere, but that those facilities offer no benefits to the state and to counties because they pay no taxes.
The tracks have pledged to plow expected profits to Florida schools. ''The money is already being spent on gambling. All we're saying is let's recover some of it,'' said Fred Havenick, the president of Miami's Flagler Dog Track. ``The untaxed, uncontrolled, unregulated industry is here and we here in the community don't benefit a bit.''
Gov. Jeb Bush blasted slot machines in a South Florida campaign swing against the referendums, warning crime rates will spike and Miami-Dade and Broward counties won't see promised benefits.
Barnstorming South Florida as if his name were on the ballot, Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday took his ''guerrilla'' campaign against slot machines to business leaders, seniors and legions of Spanish radio listeners, urging voters to reject the lure of gambling.
Deriding the machines as ''one-armed bandits'' in English, and ``tragamonedas'' -- money eaters -- in Spanish, Bush ridiculed the push by the gambling industry to bring Las Vegas style slot machines to seven area race tracks and jai-alai frontons in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
''The idea that somehow people are going to travel from all over the world dressed up in tuxedoes and wanting to play baccarat, whatever we see in James Bond movies, it's a joke,'' Bush said, charging that the facilities will prey on the poor, spark a rise in crime and leave the two host counties footing the bill.
''This is going to be paid for by people of moderate means and lower incomes. They're the ones who will pay the taxes that will go upstate and it just breaks my heart,'' he said.
Waging a last-minute campaign against the initiative, which goes before voters in the two counties on Tuesday, Bush acknowledged he's late to the game, but insisted there's still time.
The one-day blitz took Bush to familiar territory -- wading into a senior center in West Miami to wow los abuelos -- and to some virgin ground: sharing the microphone at a Coral Gables business breakfast at the Biltmore Hotel with Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, a staunch Democrat who last fall was featured in campaign ads bashing the Republican governor's elder brother, President Bush.
MILLIONS SPENT
The seven facilities have spent millions pushing the initiative and appeared rattled by the intervention of the popular governor. They packed a meeting room at the Biltmore with dog-track workers to decry what they called a ``campaign of confusion and fear.''
The industry argues that South Florida is already awash with gambling at Indian casinos and aboard cruises to nowhere, but that those facilities offer no benefits to the state and to counties because they pay no taxes.
The tracks have pledged to plow expected profits to Florida schools. ''The money is already being spent on gambling. All we're saying is let's recover some of it,'' said Fred Havenick, the president of Miami's Flagler Dog Track. ``The untaxed, uncontrolled, unregulated industry is here and we here in the community don't benefit a bit.''
