Rep. Allen Boyd announced today that he won’t be running for the open Senate seat in Florida in 2010. While Boyd (fairly conservative even by Blue Dog standards) might have been a decent prospect in the general, he may not have been enthused about his prospects for making it out of the primary, where two more liberal Miami-area politicians, Rep. Kendrick Meek and State Sen. Dan Gelber, are already jockeying for position. As a bonus, this means not having to defend an open seat in the Republican-leaning FL-02 in the Panhandle.
On the Republican side of the ledger, Attorney General (and Clinton impeachment manager and two-time Senate loser) Bill McCollum also bowed out today. While he was the front-runner in the GOP field according to last week’s Quinnipiac poll, that may have been based more on name recognition as a frequent statewide candidate (and certainly not on likeability).
Politico reports that it’s still full speed ahead for two other GOPers: former State House Speaker Marco Rubio and Rep. Connie Mack IV, although neither one has formally announced anything. On the Dem side, one other name cropped up yesterday, that hadn’t been mentioned before: Tampa mayor Pam Iorio publicly expressed her interest in the race. She could make things interesting, as the I-4 Corridor becomes more of a locus of Democratic strength in Florida while Meek and Gelber divide the Miami-area vote.
Sounds good on paper. Any skeletons?
I have a sinking feeling that Connie Mack will be the next Senator from Florida. Ewwwww.
I was hoping McCollum would run. He’s their worst possible candidate.
Mack”s the favorite. And probably the favorite in the general as well.
for this seat. I’d personally prefer Kathy Castor, but Iorio is the best choice here.
He is unnecessarily too conservative for his district and for the Democratic primary. Even if he faced one liberal, he would not have had a chance. Also the details about his son’s arrest would have been additional embarassment.
On the other hand, McCollum was surprising. I thought he really wanted to go to Washington but maybe he got word from the establishment that they would be going with Mack if he enters the race and he’d face the same result like last time when he lost to Martinez because of lack of establishment support. Oh well….
I’m surprised she’s considering running since she seemed more like a local-oriented person. She gets a lot of positive coverage in central Florida, so I think she would be a good candidate. Tampa is a very swing area as well and she definitely will go well with South Florida, so if she could win Tampa/St Petersburg in the general, she could offset any advantages from a Republican candidate in other areas.
I think that based purely on a geographical basis, she is our best bet. if she could rack up a convincing victory in hillsborough (tampa) and neighboring pinellas (st. petersburg) and maybe even pasco, she would be a strong contender…
She would inevitably do well in the southeast, racking up 60-70% wins. It stands to see how she would do in the southwest, panhandle, and north in general.
Obama won florida for a few reasons:
1) he racked up a much larger victory in miami-dade
2) he dominated the I-4 corridor (mostly orlando)
3) he shrunk GOP margins in the southwest (Sarasota i.e.), Jacksonville (to a virtual tie!), and to a lesser extent in pensacola (panhandle)
I think pam iorio would be a great candidate
Cant say how happy I am that McCollum decided not to run. Even though I was rooting for him in the 2004 primary, his track record is way too spotty.
BUT
I am not happy with Mack and his cheatting on his wife stuff. Cant say I would be a big cheerleader for him if hes nominated.
This afternoon I was surfing the radio dial when I heard a right-wing commentator quote a Rasmussen poll. We mentioned that Rasmussen polls said a majority of Americans always favor tax cuts over government spending. So when I got home I checked Rasmussen’s website. The front page had this headline.
“Most Say Tax Cuts Always Better Than Increased Spending.”
Then I clicked on the link and it went to this poll:
And then I remembered why we should take anything Rasmussen polls for a grain of salt. This is the sorriest kind of push polling.