in an era when most political campaigns carry the mystery and intrigue of a cheese sandwich, this one promises to be different. Janet Reno, the six foot, one inch former US attorney general versus Governor Jeb Bush, the slightly befuddled brother of you-know-who, who succeeded in delivering the presidential election, by hook or crook, to his brother last November.
Ms Reno announced her candidacy for the Florida governorship this week, in a fashion rather typical for her and completely atypical for US politics. Instead of the conventional news conference in a bland hotel banquet room, she called reporters to her home in south-west Miami, a place that with its peeling paint and screened-in porch, would be called "modest" only if one was being polite.
"I've spent the last three months talking to people all across Florida and I think they share my vision for Florida - building the best educational system in the country, preserving our environment, managing our growth and standing up for our elders," Ms Reno said. People in Florida want a governor "who's not afraid to make the hard decision, to stand up for those decisions".
In Janet Reno the voters will certainly have a woman who can make decisions but it could be that very ability which thwarts her quest.
A public opinion poll, taken in late July, showed that Ms Reno would handily win the Democratic Party primary next September. But it found her losing to Governor Jeb Bush in the general election by a margin of 54 to 39.
It is not that the Republicans are so strong in Florida. Mr Bush was only elected governor in 1998 and is trying to become the first Republican governor to win re-election there. In addition, Mr Bush's handling of the disputed vote count in Florida during the presidential election did not win him many friends among Democratic and independent voters.
No, the real problem may be Ms Reno herself. While many are saying this election will be the most exciting match-up since Hillary Clinton's run for the US Senate in New York, the fact is the race bears no similarity to that campaign. Ms Reno is a life-long Floridian, and her history here is part of state lore.
Her father worked for the Miami Herald, as did her mother, Jane Wood Reno. Mother was an eccentric character who swam naked, scuba dived, got stopped for drink driving and, most notoriously, wrestled alligators. All the members of the Reno household were reputed to wrestle alligators, living as they did on the edge of the swampy everglades. "Little alligators," Ms Reno once replied, not wanting to aggrandise herself.
Ms Reno spent decades as a lawyer and prosecutor in Dade County before President Clinton called on her to join his cabinet in 1992. She became the longest serving member of that cabinet and probably the most well-known attorney general since Robert F Kennedy.
But her tenure was filled with controversies and they will most certainly come back to haunt her in this race. The irony is that the two largest issues involve children and Ms Reno's treatment of them - ironic because both her supporters and detractors agree that a concern for the welfare of children has always been important to her.
In 1993, a religious cult called the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, was found to be storing a large cache of weapons and explosives.
The FBI and other federal agencies ordered the cult leader David Koresh to surrender and a long stand-off ensued.
Acting on information that children were being harmed inside the compound, Ms Reno ordered law enforcement agents to storm the area. What happened next is still in dispute but a fire ensued and 75 people died, including children.
It was a decision that spawned conspiracy theories and drove extremists such as Timothy McVeigh to seek revenge against the government. It is a decision that Ms Reno says haunts her to this day.
A far more pressing issue in Florida, however, will be Ms Reno's decision in the Elian Gonzalez case. The young boy was found drifting on a raft off the Florida coast after his mother and several other Cuban refugees had died on the 90-mile crossing from Cuba to Florida.
Elian was adopted by his Florida relatives and became a symbol of freedom for the fervent Cuban exile community, who hate Fidel Castro with a passion understood by few outsiders.
The problem for Ms Reno was that US and international law was quite clear: the boy had to be returned to his father in Cuba regardless of the politics in Florida. It was a clear legal decision but one that Ms Reno knew would cost her politically. Though the Cuban community comprises just six per cent of the electorate, its influence and visibility is disproportionate to its numbers.
In addition, there could be an issue with Ms Reno's health. At 63, she tremors noticeably with Parkinson's disease but she insists that her health is otherwise fine. And with pictures of her driving around the state in her red pick-up truck and kayaking on the Potomac river fresh in people's mind, the image of her health does seem fine.
The announcement that she would run has caused glee in the press but it has not been met with the kind of enthusiasm among Democrats that one might have expected. Ms Reno is a life-long Democrat but she can also be rather independent. In fact, the Republicans have been far more outgoing in their enthusiasm.
"They've got a lot of assets on their side," Tom Slade, former state Republican chairman told the New York Times. "A lot of anger, a lot of energy, a lot of potential money. They're got everything but a candidate."
That remains to be seen. Ms Reno has confounded expectations before. She was re-elected five times in Dade County and was the first woman to serve as a state attorney there.
But like former vice-president Al Gore, Ms Reno will have to decide whether to distance herself from both the accomplishments and embarrassments of the Clinton administration, or embrace them.
Mr Gore chose the former path. Whatever happens in Florida next year, voters know it will not be dull.
