The good ol’ boys have a plan to make it so…
By Chris Ingram
PoHo contributor
My prediction has now come true. Mel Martinez is resigning his senate seat. Give it a couple of days, and I expect you’ll be reading about our oh-so-tanned governor announcing he is appointing himself to Martinez’s seat because (sorry to John Morgan), he’s “for the people.”
Yes, this is legal. Read the rest of this entry »
The Gainesville Sun has an article detailing how right-wing Attorney General Bill McCollum has dropped code words friendly to social conservatives in a bid to appeal to moderate voters in his bid for Florida Governor.
Equality Florida says:
The Gainesville Sun reports that Republican Bill McCollum is moderating his political views and appealing to the Charlie Crist voters in his run for Florida Governor. The article points out that McCollum’s support for includng sexual orientation in Hate Crimes laws and the fact that his finance chairman’s lead oppositon to Amendment 2 has drawn the ire of arch conservatives including form Christian Coalition leader Dennis Baxley.
His finance team chairman is Jonathan Kislak, who last year led a group that unsuccessfully opposed a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage in the state. McCollum says he disagrees with his friend on that issue.
Just because some of the winger groups are “upset” at McCollum not breathing fire on stem-cell research or hate crimes or God knows what else doesn’t mean that McCollum has fundamentally changed his stripes.
He hasn’t.
By Dan Sullivan
PoHo contributor
Dear Attorney General Bill McCollum,
There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I think I’ll just go ahead and say it: I think we should see other people. Don’t get me wrong, you’re a great guy and all, but I’m just not so sure I can handle a serious relationship with you for governor. It’s not you, it’s me. Well, actually, it’s just you.
Bill McCollum, currently the most dangerous weasel in Florida politics, yesterday announced the endorsements of 60 state legislators. (This is, of course, a meaningless gesture. I remember having the endorsements of just about every member of the House during my work managing the 2004 Johnnie Byrd for US Senate campaign and look where that got him. A fourth-place primary finish.)
The nine West Central Florida Republicans lining up to stroke their presumptive nominee (perhaps not presumptive? Recall our earlier story about possible challenger Paula Dockery) are Sens. Victor Crist, Mike Fasano and Nancy Detert; and Reps. Ed Homan, Ed Hooper, Faye Culp, John Legg, Peter Nehr and Will Weatherford.
By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio
Last week, Lakeland State Senator Paula Dockery said she was seriously contemplating
a run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010.
Apparently, she didn’t get the edict that party Chairman Jim Greer issued recently that all good Republicans should get behind Attorney General Bill McCollum’s candidacy.
But as far as Republican consultant (and soon to be PoHo contributor) Chris Ingram is concerned, Dockery’s possible entrance into the race is a good thing.
Florida’s right-wing attorney general, Bill McCollum, is set to confirm his gubernatorial bid this morning, a genuinely scary thought since he could be a fluke election away from being our next governor.
Here’s my column from the upcoming print Creative Loafing issue about how McCollum should be freaking you out by now:
Many people expect an announcement that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will say he’s running for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, when the governor is set to announce his political future. To be sure, an open Senate seat does not come along very often … but this could be a major problem for Republicans.
He is the popular mayor of the fourth-largest city in the fourth largest state with a proven record of achievement and yet Rick Baker may have hit the ceiling as far as his political career is concerned. With Bill McCollum announcing that he will not run for the US Senate – thereby guaranteeing a bid for re-election as Florida’s attorney general — and Alex Sink’s decision to remain as CFO, Baker now finds himself without an open office for which to run. Read the rest of this entry »
By Peter Schorsch
PoHo contributor
Not only is it light years away from November 2010, but the prospect of another grueling campaign in Florida — this time to replace Mel Martinez in the U.S. Senate — has yet to excite me. I’m obviously not alone in this feeling either, as the two biggest names in both parties, Jeb Bush and Alex Sink, decided not to run for the seat. That leaves both sides of the aisle with candidates for whom the word ’senatorial’ does not immediately come to mind.
Allen Boyd? He just doesn’t scream Daniel Patrick Moynihan to me. Florida’s congressional delegation is already weak enough relative to the other large states, such as California and none of the expected contenders are likely to change that. Bill McCollum? He tried to impeach Bill Clinton! Now we’re going to reward him with a membership in the most exclusive political body in the history of the Western world? Read the rest of this entry »
Researchers polled it with top Democrat Alex Sink in the race, even though she has announced she will not run, and still it wasn’t great news for Democrats. The Quinnipiac University poll released this week shows the difficulty Obama’s party will have in winning Mel Martinez’s Florida seat in 2010, as I outlined in my column this week.
Atty General Bill McCollum (courtesy myfloridalegal.com)
It was a toss-up with Sink in the race, at least against GOP Attorney General and anti-casino noodge Bill McCollum. McCollum led 36 percent-35 percent. Not exactly a great starting point for your strongest candidate — who is not even running.
The breakdown of the rest of the race:
Had Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink decided to run for the U.S. Senate, she would have had a small early lead in the Democratic field, and run almost even with the best-known GOP potential candidate, Attorney General Bill McCollum, with 35 percent for Sink and 36 percent for McCollum, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.
Although McCollum holds a wide lead in name recognition among the GOP candidates, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of the former senator with the same name, runs closely to him in a trial heat of GOP contenders and also is viewed very positively by the party-rank-in-file.
“No one has surfaced as a likely Democratic opponent for Gov. Charlie Crist and that’s not surprising given how well he is thought of by Floridians,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It’s impressive at this time of national Obamamania that Gov. Crist’s favorability rating is slightly higher than that of the new President. Of course, it’s still more than 21 months until the 2010 election, but Charlie Crist looks like a very strong candidate for re-election.”
Here is how they stand today (a fairly meaningless exercise, I admit, except for ammo in early fundraising) on the Democratic side:
FLA is already drawing notice about its early voting as some screw-ups are reported. And Barack Obama flies to see his sick granny instead of campaigning. And say it ain’t so: UF’s Mr. Two Bits is calling it quits after this season?!? It’s Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008. Now the headlines:
