Wow, yesterday’s mishugas was quite something, huh? But here it is from the horse’s mouth:
U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV won’t run for U.S. Senate.
“I’ve got two small children and it’s hard enough to get to spend a lot of good quality time now. I have a wife. They are all very important to me and at the end of the day family has to be number one,” Mack told the St. Petersburg Times.
His wife, kids and parents encouraged him to run and politically it made a lot of sense, he said. But the three-term congressman also considered his position in congress, saying he said he can be a leading advocate for cutting spending and taxes and, as chairman of House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, the 43-year-old Fort Myers Republican also a top voice on Latin America and challenging Hugo Chavez.
Mack had a lot of natural advantages in this race, not least the broad recognition of his family name – his father, Connie Mack III, was a two-term Senator who in fact preceeded Dem Bill Nelson in his seat. So this leave Mike Haridopolos as the only serious candidate in the race – hah, just kidding! Haridopolos is a joke. Which means there’s now an even bigger opening on the GOP side for the likes of ex-Sen. George LeMieux or ex-state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner. But I think the person best situated to take advantage is actually 13th CD Rep. Vern Buchanan, who is very wealthy and probably more acceptable to the teabagging set than Mack, who was occasionally an apostate. Buchanan has some ethical & legal issues of his own, but with Mack out, the field is now wide open.
UPDATE: Wow, check out this bullshit:
On Thursday, a confidante close to Mack told POLITICO “there was nothing wrong with saying it’s expected” that he would run. “You are not wrong to print this,” continued the aide. But this reporter was clearly under the mistaken impression that meant he was going to go forward with a campaign.
“He was the front runner. He was expected, which is what you wrote, but he’s going to announce he’s not going to run,” said the aide Friday morning.
This source intentionally tried to deceive Dave Catanese and others. Dave, and this source’s other victims, need to share this person’s name. He or she no longer deserves the protections of anonymity – this person failed to live up to their end of the bargain. If this person remains masked, then everyone else in the media ecosystem is at risk of being their next victim.
If we can’t have Katherine Harris again, you’re the next best thing.
is the assignment you get when all of your 1st choices are denied. Western hemispher subcommittee is what you choose to be on when you have Cubans in either your state or district.
I can buy the family stuff but that committee assignment stuff is prattle. Connie Mack IV appears to be on the slowtrack in the house to backbenchville. But hey its a living.
I don’t think LeMiuex or Haridopoulous will catch fire during the primaries – they’ll garner about 25% combined. Hasner would love to be the next Marco Rubio, except the Tea Party support doesn’t seem to be there. If Buchanan runs, I agree, he garners the ’06 Katharine Harris vote and easily wins the primary. He’s less crazy than Harris, though, so he’ll only lose to Nelson by 15.
…is of course Mary Bono Mack (aka, the congresswoman from California’s 45th district). He was divorced from his wife in 2006, shortly thereafter marrying Bono. What salacious details might have emerged if he ran against Nelson?
Actually the most famous Connie Mack of all is his great grandfather – the baseball Hall of Famer who managed the Athletics for an incredible 50 years, winning 9 pennants and 5 World Series along the way. I suspect that at least Mack III got a lot of early votes just because of the name.
to count out Haridoplos. All of the controversies swirling around him seem like they might be a big deal to highly informed and highly partisan audiences, like here, but to ordinary people I don’t see them resonating all that much. Plus they are coming out WAY too early for FL Dems liking I would have to think, they will be old news by next year.
The fact remains he is the State Senate President in a state that has proven itself to be very GOP friendly lately and he has shown he has the ability and connections to raise a huge amount of money.
Shake it all about. Mack was definitely the strongest challenger but even then Nelson was favored. He will still have a competitive race but if he is losing the Senate has already gone.
Aides are in the worst position when it comes to these questions. If you say to the reporter, “no, don’t say it’s expected he’ll run,” then you tip off the reporter that he’s either leaning against a run or already decided against it.
I have a lot of sympathy for these people, who are trying to handle media rollouts while at the same time leaking tidbits but hold back others. Here the aide would have blown the press confernence if he had done something different.
Don’t count on the name being leaked either. These people are repeat players. Today’s anger fades as tomorrow’s potential scoop nears.
Well, I’m disappointed. I worked on Mack’s father’s first Senate campaign back when I was in college and I like the son as well. I do think he’d have been the strongest candidate. I’m not crazy about the Senate Majority Leader OR his damn hair. I could have gotten excited for Mack. Now I’ll have to sit back and see; I am totally undecided at present.
but they still got a lot of hits yesterday, so I doubt anything will change.
Seriously, they’re about one level above gossip rags.
I wouldn’t touch a statewide run with a ten-foot pole. After what happened to Bill McCollum last year, I would not not jump into this race as a Republican until the foment of the Tea Party bullsh*t calms down.
Do y’all not know how messed up his previous marriage was and how he “partied” quite a bit before marrying Mary Bono (who has her own history too).
Small kids my ass.
POLITICO getting egg on its face in the morning.
He serves in the House, and he doesn’t say he’s dropping out of the House, so the difference in ‘how much time he can spend with the wife ‘n kids,’ serving in House vs Senate, is negligible – in fact, a Senate term would mean less frequent campaigning (though state-wide), so the statement seems lacking in candor to put it mildly.
Did he endorse Haridopolis, or was Kraushaar still wrong about that?
And a slight lean blue turns into a close to solid lean blue.
Does POLITICO have egg on its face?