Word comes from Politico that Tim Mahoney may, at this late date, decide not to seek re-election, according to “a Democratic leadership aide with ties to his campaign.” (No direct comment from Mahoney’s campaign, of course.)
The article, if you were to create a word cloud, would include such phrases as “paid $121,000 to a former aide,” “threatened to sue Mahoney for sexual harassment,” “allegedly had a second affair,” and “FBI has begun a preliminary investigation.” And Mahoney doesn’t think he can survive all that? Quitter! Bwak bwak bwak bwak…
Well, if this indeed happens, then it seems like we’re looking at a virtual repeat of 2006, where GOP candidate Mark Foley bailed out shortly before the election, and substitute candidate Joe Negron was handicapped by being referred to as “Mark Foley” on the ballot. (And yet Negron barely lost: one more tribute to Mahoney’s political skills.) So this opens up the question: what FL-16 Democrat would get to play the role of “Tim Mahoney” on this year’s ballot? Despite this district’s R+2 lean, it doesn’t seem like we have much of a bench in this district (which is what led to previously-unelected ex-GOPer Mahoney running for us in the first place).
A quick look through the Florida legislature doesn’t seem to indicate any Democratic state senators in the 16th (except possibly for Dave Aronberg (I say ‘possibly’ because there seems to be partial but not total overlap between the 16th and the state districts)) and almost no state representatives (probably Richard Machek, and possibly Shelly Vana). Anyone from the area, please feel free to chip in with other names.
Even if we can’t replace him. This guy needs to just slither away.
Timing is a major difference though in the possiblity of Mahoney dropping out anf Foley dropping out. While both were late in the game, Foley was back in the first half of September if I recall, while we are only 19 days out of the election. Negron was able to make it close with two months to go, but still lost. Could a repacement for Mahoney make it close two weeks to go? The DCCC would have to buy up all the ad time they could to try and get a replacements name out to the public.
Can a candidate withdraw at this point?
I know this is neither likely to happen nor likely to be taken seriously, but what if Mahoney says this: “If I am re-elected, I will resign my seat effective right after taking office. If you elect my Republican he (it is a “he” right?) will be in the minority and will have a president from the other party, in all likelihood. He will be less able to get things done for the people of the 16th district. Re-elect me, I’ll resign, and you can elect a Democrat that will be better able to get things done for the distrct.”
Or something like that.
maybe we could recruit Vito Fossella.
He needs a job.
Run him as the family values candidate – to the best of our knowledge, he has only one mistress.
Or Alan Schlesinger. I feel sorry for that guy, and he does own a home in Florida.
FL-16 is one oddly shaped district. It contains a thin strip of the east coast, wanders briefly in land and at the top slices over westward to annex basically barren countryside around the noth and east of Lake Okeechobee before hitting a Republican area on the west coast north of Naples and south of Tampa.
The shape of the district makes it difficult to advertise, fidfficult to get news coverage, difficult to builda sense of community, and difficult to recruit candidates. FL-23 takes a big chunk of land out of this district, presumably heavily Democratic.
to just say let him stay and run for us. He is a total ahole but it’s pretty much too late. Hell, maybe he’ll win and we can work with when he he’ll resign so we can make sure we are ready for a special election.