Oct. 28 -- Gov. Jeb Bush seems to be pulling ahead of challenger Bill McBride. Polls show Bush's lead among Florida voters is growing after a Bush campaign offensive designed to equate a McBride win with higher taxes. A Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times poll shows Bush leading McBride 51 percent to 43 percent.

The same poll taken a month ago showed Bush leading 50 percent to 44 percent. Bush, in speeches and television ads, has accused McBride of wanting to raise taxes to pay for his education reform initiatives.

McBride has said that a fifty-cent hike on the price of cigarettes and good budget management are all that is needed to fund his programs.

A once popular but now controversial ballot measure known as Amendment 9 has become the main theme of Bush's criticism of McBride.

A proposed addition to the state constitution, Amendment 9 would force vast reductions in class sizes in the primary and secondary education systems in Florida.

"The amendment requires that the legislature earmark money to reduce the number of children in each classroom by 2010. From pre-kindergarten through third-grade, no more than 18 students could sit in one room. In grades four through eight, 22 students would be allowed. High school classes would be limited to 25 students," reported the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel on Oct. 28.

Bush has said the measure would cause a budget crisis and has challenged McBride to say how he will pay for it. McBride, once a supporter of the amendment, has begun to distance himself from it.

McBride says he only supports the cigarette tax and has pointed out that his own class-reduction plan is affordable because it only covers the early grades. McBride has said, however, that if Amendment 9 passed he would implement it fully.

The Bush camp says if Amendment 9 passes, McBride will be forced to consider other forms of taxation such as an income tax or a higher sales tax.

Bush has said that he will not raise taxes to pay for Amendment 9 and it's passage, therefore, would cause deep cuts in other programs.

The measure initially gained wide popularity in a state whose educational infrastructure is groaning under the load of a continuing population boom. Many schools have built small villages of mobile-home type buildings to deal with the influx of students.

Polls indicate that Bush's criticisms of McBride seem to be catching on with the electorate, but the fate of the amendment is still uncertain.

"Once viewed as the most potent weapon for Democrats eager to cast Gov. Jeb Bush as a failure on schools, a measure to cap class size instead has turned into an unexpected burden for Bush's Democratic rival, Bill McBride" the Miami Herald reported on Oct. 28 "Now, entering the final week of the race on the defensive after a Republican ad blitz labeling him a tax-and-spend liberal, McBride faces a political irony: The class proposal pushed by his supporters could pass Nov. 5 while still triggering his defeat."

--By Jason Manning, Online NewsHour