A Cool Hundred Million

(AP)  President Bush is shoring up his brother's re-election war chest by raising $2.5 million for the Florida GOP and lifting the total fund-raising take by him and Vice President Dick Cheney above $100 million for this year alone.

The Friday dinner at a Universal Studios hotel in Orlando, Fla., was officially for the benefit of the Florida Republican Party.

But with party leaders ready to spend heavily to support Gov. Jeb Bush in November, the president's visit was clearly a family affair in support of his younger brother's already well-funded, ahead-in-the-polls campaign.

It was the president's fifth visit this year to the state that barely bumped him into the White House after a Supreme Court decision. Florida, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, is Mr. Bush's third most-visited state since becoming president, behind Pennsylvania and New York.

Mr. Bush's top advisers have acknowledged Florida's political importance. An internal White House computer slide presentation tagged the Florida governorship as one of 15 that Democrats have at least a possibility of taking from the GOP this year. It also identified the state as an area of "special concern" for the president's own re-election in 2004.

Janet Reno, attorney general in the Clinton administration, is among the Democrats seeking to unseat Gov. Bush.

The event also was likely to mark the $100 million milestone in the president's fund-raising efforts around the country. The intense money chase, expected to continue through the summer as Mr. Bush has a schedule heavy with out-of-town trips, comes as Congress enacted a new campaign finance law meant to take big money out of national politics.

The president also was shining a spotlight on "age-appropriate" workouts by touring an Orlando center for elderly people and even dropping in on spinning and "senior-cise" classes.

The theme, according to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer: "You're never too old to exercise."

The fitness event is part of a four-day White House campaign to encourage people to emulate their teetotaling, fitness-buff president by working out, eating properly, laying off alcohol and cigarettes and generally taking better care of themselves.

Florida Democratic Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson accompanied Mr. Bush to Florida aboard Air Force One, whose crew served a decidedly unhealthy lunch of corned beef on rye, steak fries and cheesecake. Given advance warning that reporters wanted to know about his own lunch, Mr. Bush ordered up an off-menu alternative: egg salad on toast and a Diet Coke.

Scheduling the official appearance also allows the White House to charge taxpayers for half of the trip's costs, saving the Republican Party from having to foot the entire bill.