MEXICO BEACH, Fla. - The leading candidate for governor of this state is working the crowd hard, shaking hands, talking up the ills of crime, welfare, education. He's winning, but he's got an image problem.
"I'm voting for Jeb's mother," says Janet W. King, a 65-year-old restaurant owner standing at the crowd's fringe. "It's nothing Jeb has said. It's his family, his mother, his father's career as a politician."
Half a nation away, in Victoria, Texas, another powerful gubernatorial candidate also is speaking out on crime, welfare, education.
And another supporter is sounding a remarkably similar theme.
"People around here are used to judging you on the foundation you're built on," says Jim Puckett, a 64-year-old real estate man. "I tell you who could win easily, and that's his mother."
These candidates may have an identity problem.
Republicans. Conservatives. Enemies of big government, generous welfare, early prison release. Relative political neophytes, running against popular and reasonably successful incumbent governors. And Bushes.
In one of the most remarkable political stories of the year, the two sons of Barbara and former president George Bush are within reach of seizing the governorships of two of the nation's largest states - the first time in memory two brothers have simultaneously run for such posts.
In Florida, the latest polls put Jeb Bush, 41, 5 points or more ahead of incumbent Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, and most political analysts here say that if he doesn't win, he will certainly come close.
In Texas, the president's eldest son, George W., 47, is taking on the immensely popular Democratic incumbent, Ann Richards. The race is considered too close to call.
With relatively little experience - George W. ran a losing congressional campaign in 1978, and Jeb had a stint as the appointed secretary of commerce for Florida - the Bush brothers are doing remarkably well.
"Sometimes, if you're one of these dynasts, you can skip the first level," says presidential scholar Stephen Hess, a Brookings Institution analyst who has written a book on American political dynasties.
"Not a lot of people start out running for their first office by running for governor. . . . But we'll see if they win (on Nov. 8). Then, we'll see if they continue. You need real persistence to start a dynasty."
It began with Prescott Bush, President Bush's father, a senator from Connecticut during the 1950s and early 1960s. Next came George Bush's rise to 41st president. Now, conceivably, one of the president's sons could be positioning himself for a future run at the presidency as one of the Republican Party's top potential candidates.
Neither has expressed such an interest. And there is a downside to the notion of family dynasties: Both Bush sons have, in effect, been accused of trading on their family name.
But their father, who has helped host several million-dollar fund-raisers for each son, says their famous name isn't critical.
"The voters will decide on the name recognition question," the president wrote in response to written questions. "The Kennedys, the Rodhams, the Roosevelts, all running this year, are probably asked the same question. The races will be determined on who has the best ideas and who best can lead."
Most analysts agree.
There's no question, they say, that the Bush brothers benefited immensely from their parents' fame. They were able to plug into a political and campaign-financing network that has proved invaluable. But the candidates themselves still have to run - and win.
Jokes George W.: "It's great being (the president's) son. But I've inherited 100% of his enemies, and only 50% of his friends."
That hasn't stopped the attacks.
Richards - who once lambasted President Bush as having been "born with a silver foot in his mouth" - has referred to her Texas opponent as "that young Bush boy," and claimed "daddy's friends" bailed him out on several near-disastrous business deals. Columnist Molly Ivins, in a tweak that has been picked up by Richards, calls him "Shrub" - a small bush.
In Florida, two opponents in a bruising, five-way primary, ran an ad against the local Bush: "Jeb thinks he's special. Do you?"
President Bush says they'll survive just fine. "I am not worried," he says. "They have been through a lot of political wars in their own states, and they know the rigors of politics and of the campaign trail."
Despite the attacks, the Bush brothers - even while sounding remarkably similar themes - have developed into distinct campaigners, and distinct personalities.
George W., who attended Andover, Yale and Harvard, was a fraternity president, a carouser who didn't quit drinking until the age of 40. He's a gregarious man who married late and won instant fame in Texas when, in 1989, he became general managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Flying between Texas cities in a private plane, he jokes that this is the "campaign of joy," regales a reporter with amusing political tales, teases his aides unmercifully and calls his aircraft "Accountability One." He wades easily into crowds, and his Texas twang appeals to those who hear him.
Jeb, who stayed in the state he was born in to attend the University of Texas, developed into the cerebral brother, the policy wonk, a man slightly uncomfortable in crowds who speaks of "principle-centered leadership" and of being "a gladiator for fundamental change."
He married a Mexican woman he met on an exchange program while still very young. When he campaigns in a huge mobile home, his wife, Columba, and youngest son, Jebby, are by his side.
"I view this as a quest for public service," he says. "It isn't motivated by a belief that a (Bush) chromosome is making me do it."
The elder Bushes have promised to help as needed. They are in south Florida today, helping raise money for Jeb, and Barbara Bush plans to tour heavily Democratic south Texas soon to help give George W. a leg up.
Says President Bush: "The bottom line is I am very proud of both sons. They do not need advice from their father. They are both very loyal young men, but each is properly charting his own course, without regard to positions I may have taken, that which he feels is best for his state."
Back in the Florida panhandle, where Jeb Bush is fighting to win critical swing votes, even tried-and-true Democrats acknowledge the power of the Bush name (the president won most of this area in 1992).
"Even though people don't know him in this area, they certainly know his father," says Glenda Rosasco, 59, a member of the Gulf County Democratic Executive Committee. "And I think people who voted for his father are going to vote for him."
