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Bolstered by family ties , he showed some steel (PBP) 11-16-02 Page 210A THE PALM BEACH POST SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2002 Politics runs In Jeff Atwater's family His connections, past . . Jeff Atwater's mother, Patricia, comes from a line of prominent Democrats. But his father was a lifelong Republican. Gov. Napoleon Gov. Cary Broward, Hardee, Jeff Jeff Atwater's Atwater's mother's great-grandfather. second cousin. The Democrat The Democrat served from served from 1905 to 1909. 1921 to 1925. Broward County Hardee County is named for him, is named for him. . . . and present One sister is married to influential lobbyist Hugo Unruh, Enid Broward John Atwater and Patricia Hardee Jeff Atwater, 44, is a Patti Unruh, one of Jeff Barbara Jeanne '13.1.1 Hardee, Jeff Atwater, Jeff Atwater's parents. She banker who served on Atwater's older sisters, Atwater, Atwater's maternal came from a Democratic family; he the North Palm Beach ran the grass-roots Jeff Atwaters younger grandmother. She was a Republican who was a World Village Council in portion of his House and sister, is active in was a Democratic War II fighter pilot, FBI agent and later 1993-94. He was Senate campaigns. She's Democratic politics in National public safety director in North Palm elected to the state married to prominent Missouri, most recent - Committeewoman Beach, where the family has lived House as a Republican lobbyist Hugo Unruh and ly as manager of the in the 1930s and since 1966. John Atwater died in in 2000 and to the is a high school friend of state Democratic '40s. August 2001 at age 77. Jeff Atwater state Senate Nov. 5. County Commissioner Party's coordinated is the fifth of their six children. Karen Marcus. campaign. `I'm going to stay focused on going the distance ► ATWATER from L4 "I've always been good at sports," she says. "That's a problem with me. I like to win. I don't like to be second." Jeff Atwater showed some of that same competitive drive in Florida's most closely watched and lavishly financed state legislative race. Atwater overcame a double-digit poll- ing deficit to defeat popular Democratic Attorney General Bob Butterworth for the Dis- trict 25 Senate seat. Atwater, 44, will be sworn in Tuesday in Tallahassee. Bare -knuckle TV ads marked the Atwater - Butterworth contest and sur- prised some who regarded Atwater as an affable, easygo- ing state House freshman — the kind of guy remembered by one of his sisters for never arguing line calls when he played in youth tennis tourna- ments. "I was glad to see his strong backbone that he showed," says John R. Smith, chairman of the Economic Council's Business Political Action Committee. "Jeff won that race because he showed some steel. He didn't back away or bend when the chal- lenge came." "I thought he was a very genteel person... . I did not expect that kind of campaign out of Jeff Atwater," says state Sen. Ron Klein, D - Delray Beach, who headed the Senate campaign effort for Florida Democrats. "It was disappointing." Atwater's ads depicting Butterworth as a tax -hiking liberal were "misleading," Klein says. And he says ads by a mysterious outside group attacking Butterworths wife's business dealings were out of bounds. Atwater, who compiled a conservative, pro-business record as a rookie House member, makes no apology for the tax ads. He agrees with Klein about the attacks by a group called People for Integ- rity in Government — but says he had nothing to do with them. A grieving family united Butterworth aired some controversial ads as well, sug- gesting in one spot that Atwa- ter voted to let children take guns to school. That charge, extrapolated from Atwater's vote for a 1,800 -page educa- tion bill, led to an Atwater re- sponse ad accusing Butter- worth of "attacking Jeff Atwater and his family." Claiming his family had been wronged sounded like candidate hyperbole. But it's difficult to separate family from Atwater or his campaign. Patricia Atwater walked precincts and put up signs for her son. Her daughter Patti Unruh — the wife of lobbyist Hugo Unruh and longtime friend of County Commis- sioner Karen Marcus — ran her younger brother's impres- sive grass-roots operation. Carole Atwater, the candi- date's wife, enlisted her friends to stuff envelopes at the family's dining room table. Jeff Atwater's brother Mike and sister Enid helped as well. Family members networked with business associates, col- lege friends, church and PTA members and others to woo voters and recruit about 300 campaign volunteers. It became a kind of family therapy, Patti Unruh says, af- ter her father died of cancer in August 2001. Four of John and Patricia Atwater's six children still live in North Palm Beach. They get together frequently, but the gatherings had be- come painful after John At- water died. "This was good for us," Patti Unruh says of her broth- er's campaign. "It was great for my mom. She knocked on more doors than anyone." BILL INGRAM/Staff Photographer Jeff Atwater and family members celebrate his state Beach. Atwater, who defeated Democratic Attorney Senate victory Nov. 5 at the Sheraton in West Palm General Bob Butterworth, will be sworn in Tuesday. 'I always said to Jeff, If we can get you In front of people, they'll never vote for Bob Butterworth.' PATTI UNRUH Jeff Atwater's sister John Atwater was a World War II fighter pilot and FBI agent who moved the family to North Palm Beach in 1966. When he retired from the FBI in 1978, he became public safety director in North Palm Beach. While Patricia Atwa- ter often spoke proudly of her family's Democratic history, John Atwater was a Republi- can who didn't talk much about partisan politics. But he often spoke of hard work, re- sponsibility and patriotism. Despite their partisan differences, both parents shared conservative views. Lifelong Democrat Patricia Atwater felt her party lost its moral compass during the Bill Clinton -Monica Lewinsky scandal. She switched her registration to Republican in 1999. "What I hated most was the Democratic Party did not want him impeached and stood behind his not taking responsibility," Patricia Atwa- ter says. Jeff Atwater, the fifth child, grew up with a sense of responsibility, his mother re- calls. She remembers him earning money as a teenager by mowing lawns, delivering papers and busing tables. With their mother's encour- agement, Jeff and younger sister, Barbara Jeanne — known as B.J. and now active in Democratic politics in Missouri — took up tennis and often competed in tour- naments. Jeff Atwater didn't see athletics as cutthroat compe- tition, his mother says, but "learned to get along with kids" by playing sports. "He was good at them, but he's not — I mean, he likes to play them but it doesn't control his life." B.J•, who would attend Flagler College on a tennis scholarship, had more talent — and fire. "You could hear her (B.J.) three courts away if some- body gave her a bad line call," Patti Unruh recalls. "Jeff would be like, 'It's your call.' " It's not that he was a milquetoast, Jeff Atwater in- sists. It's just that he saw a tennis match the way he would later view his banking career or his political cam- paigns — as lengthy battles. "It wasn't worth arguing over one lousy call," he says. Besides, opponents would of- ten make a bad call on pur- pose as a "psyche job" to try to get him to loose his cool. He wouldn't play that game. "I knew there were people that would serve harder or have a better ground stroke," Atwater says, "but I'm going to run down every ball and stay focused on going the dis- tance." After playing on the tennis team at Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Atwater went to the University of Florida. He tried out for the school's nationally ranked tennis team but didn't make it. He succeeded elsewhere. Atwater was a resident assis- tant in a dorm, president of his fraternity and a member of the Blue Key honor society. He graduated with a finance degree in 1981 and was hired by Barnett Bank in Jackson- ville. Atwater rose through the management ranks and by 1991 returned to Palm Beach County as a director of retail banking. He was elected to the North Palm Beach Village Council in 1993 but resigned in 1994 to move to Vero Beach to be president and chief ex- ecutive officer for Barnett's Treasure Coast operations. By 1996 he was president and CEO of Barnett's Broward County operations. He returned to Palm Beach County in 1998 when NationsBank acquired Bar- nett and Atwater became a senior vice president. He's now head of Palm Beach County operations for River- side National Bank. When a north -county state House seat came open in 2000, Atwater ran against business- man Carl Domino and school librarian Helen Zientek in the GOP primary. Domino spent more than $248,000 to Atwa- ter's $147,000 in the primary. But Atwater ran a methodical campaign with sister Patti or- ganizing the door-to-door can- vassing. He astounded his ri- vals and many observers by getting 71.2 percent to win the three-way, then polled 57.6 percent in the general election to win the seat. Personality, not Just cash Atwater quickly made friends in Tallahassee. His lo- cal colleagues made him chairman of the Palm Beach County legislative delegation this year. When the GOP - controlled legislature drew new post -census political boundaries, influential state Sen. Ken Pruitt, R -Port St. Lucie, suggested carving a Senate seat for freshman House member Atwater. With state Sen. Debby Sanderson, R -Fort Lauderdale, falling out of favor with the GOP leader- ship, legislators redrew her Broward-dominated coastal Senate district to make it one dominated by Palm Beach County %titers and tailor-made for Atwater. Atwater filed to challenge Sanderson. After a few months, she dropped out. With Democrat Bonnie Weaver the only other candi- date in a GOP dominated dis- trict, Atwater seemed to have an easy ride to the Senate. But the day before the candidate filing period closed in July, term -limited Attorney Gener- al Butterworth shocked the political establishment by fil- ing for the seat. Atwater was an instant underdog. Early Republican polls showed him trailing by about 20 points. But the state GOP, seeing the Republican tilt of the district and hoping to knock off a prominent Democrat who might one day run for governor, invested big bucks in Atwater. The party paid for TV ads and a mailing in early September to boost Atwater's profile in the dis- trict. But Atwater knew that if he didn't gain in the polls, the party would spend its money elsewhere. By early October, polls showed Atwater within striking distance. The GOP ponied up more money. Between the $735,538 At- water raised and the money spent by the GOP and People for Integrity in Government, Democrats estimate Atwater had more than $3 million in backing to approximately $1 million for Butterworth. The GOP says $3 million sounds high, but won't reveal how much it spent. Patti Unruh disputes that money alone won the race for her brother. The campaign knocked on more than 20,000 doors and got Atwater in front of numerous groups. "I always said to Jeff, if we can get you in front of people, they'll never vote for Bob Butterworth," Unruh says. She organized neighborhood walks four nights a week and on Sundays in key precincts. And she mined her contacts, especially in Broward County where Atwater was less known, to set up appearances before groups of voters. The Atwater campaign sought out people like Jack Cooney, president of an um- brella group of 36 condo as- sociations in Lauderdale -By - The -Sea. Atwater set up a meeting, made a good im- pression and asked Cooney for the names of other people to meet. Then he called them. He met with Lauderdale -By - The -Sea voters at an outdoor breakfast event. While Atwater was per- sonally connecting with vot- ers, Cooney says: "I don't think anybody saw Butter- worth at all here. And it showed in the voting." Another person working for Atwater in Broward Coun- ty was Julie Novakovic, a PTA vice president and genuine soccer mom with three kids in youth leagues. She is not a political or civic activist. But she was a sorority sister of Patti Unruh at the University of Florida. She ended up walking her Coral Ridge neighborhood handing out literature several weekends, organizing volunteers to stand outside a precinct on Election Day and helping host a meet -and -greet party that about 70 of her neighbors at- tended. "All my friends that went there, they said after they met him they were strongly going to vote for him," Novakovic says. "I never ran into anybody from Butterworth's campaign. I know they were out there. I thought I would run into But- terworth people, but I didn't." Atwater ended up winning not only his base of Palm Beach County with 56.5 per- cent of the vote but also But- terworth's home turf of Brow- ard County with 53 percent. His overall 55.2 percent showing against one of the state's most recognized Dem- ocrats had Florida Republi- cans crowing. "It was a really big deal," says state GOP spokesman Towson Fraser. "We had someone we believe is an up- and-coming star in the Re- publican Party in a Republi- can district, and the Demo- crats thought they could come in and take it. It meant a lot to win it — and win it decisive- „ y Though officially certi- fied as an up-and-coming star by his party, Atwater won't indulge in speculation about his political future. "There's a level of respon- sibility that comes with this seat," Atwater says, "to show that we can do more than just run a campaign, that we can serve as we did in the House." a george_bennett@pbpost.com Vaat Sign Are You? Get your daily horoscope from Joyce Jilson in Accent. PRESS Ts GIGAN ARTSALLEQAJ --_-- _V v THIS SUNDAY ONLY 9 A.M. to 5 P.M: All First Quality Original Oil Paintings ALL 00 PAINTINGS UNDER 0 includes Giant 24"x36" Sofa Size Oil Paintings. Over 2,000 Original Oil Paintings to Choose From. WHY PAY MORE! 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