Redstate

By Charles Fenwick Posted in Elections — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Today, the long strange race comes to an end as voters head to the polls. Here's a look at the tumlutuous final days of the Republican primary campaign for Florida's U.S. Senate Seat in which a newspaper withdrew its endorsement, the Governor asked for a television ad to be pulled, and the long-time leader in the polls appeared to fall to second.

It was never a squeaky clean campaign, but it had been cordial enough.

In the first televised debate, there was not much new. Mel Martinez was tagged as a trial lawyer and taken to task for not supporting the Presdient on capping medical malpractice awards to $250,000. McCollum was questioned on why he thought he could win the race after losing in 2000 and was tagged as a career politician and lobbyist. The most agressive of the group was businessman Doug Gallagher who referred to Martinez and McCollum as the 'M & M' boys. The campaigns proceed on quietly after the debate.

The campaign would get even quieter as Hurricane Charley made landfall in southwest Florida two days later. The storm devestating Lee County, the storm proceeded up Interstate 4 and passed over Orlando and Daytona. Schools in counties on the storms path were closed for a week as power outages were widespread. The Martinez and McCollum campaigns both had headquarters in Orlando that were without power and had to relocate on an ad hoc basis. The storm brought the Senate campaign to a near halt for about a week as everyone focused on recovery efforts, although there were ocassional bubblings up.

On the Wednesday following the storm, the Martinez and McCollum campaigns had dueling internal polls. That morning the McCollum campaign released polling performed by John McLaughlin which was of 500 likely voters. It showed McCollum at 38% and Martinez at 18%. The Martinez campaign initially refused to released their numbers but shortly did so anyway. Martinez pollster David Hill showed that his survey of 617 likely voters indicated McCollum leading at 34%, but with Martinez close behind at 30%.

The next small pop-up in visibility was when Doug Gallagher released his television ad that continued his referring to Martinez and McCollum as the M&M boys. The rather pecuiliar ad actually depicted the pair as a green and red M&M candy respectively an reiterated Gallagher's criticism of them as a trial lawyer and career politician. From there the campaign lapsed into yet another quiet lull.

Everyone figured that the final week of the campaign would be wild, but few expected something like what has passed.

Tuesday August 24

In a conference call, conservative supporters of Mel Martinez, which included former Family Research Council heads Gary Bauer and Ken Connor, called Bill McCollum 'antifamily' and 'not a man of his word' for supporting hate-crime legislation and his position on stem-cell research, which does not coinicide exactly with President Bush's position (although like the other Republican candidates he does not support research that takes a life). The call derided McCollum (who has a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 89) for being aligned with liberal democrats.

Wednesday August 25

The last Republican Senator from Florida, Connie Mack, came to the defense of McCollum. In a letter sent to 15,000 activists, Mack called the criticsm of McCollum "mean-spirited, desperate and personal," and stated that "This kind of political hate speech can only hurt our party and doom us in November."

Joining Mack in defending McCollum was rival candidate Tom Gallagher. Stating that he was offended by the attacks, Gallagher withdrew criticsm of McCollum and proceeded to focus his final ads on Martinez' trial-lawyer past.

Thursday August 26

Daniel Webster, a longtime state legislator who had been in the race until May, broke his post-withdrawal silence by endorsing Bill McCollum, stating that the recent attack on him caused him to go public with his support of McCollum.

Dueling polls were released. A Mason-Dixon poll of 500 likely voters showed Martinez with his first lead of the race at 33% with McCollum in second at 27% and 18% of voters undecidec (4.5% margin of error. A Research 200 poll of 400 likely voters showed McCollum at 35%, Martinez at 31%, and only 13% undecided (4% margin of error).

Friday August 27

The Republican candidates had a debate that was televised state-wide on PBS affiliates. The Martinez/McCollum feud was quite heated. During the debate, McCollum pulled out a flier which called accused him of "catering to the radical homosexual lobby" and called him "the new darling of the homosexual extremists". He asked for Martinez to condemn the flier and apologize. Martinez did not do so, stating that he had been subject to attacks for the past nine months on his profession and that the criticsm of McCollum was fair game. After the debate, McCollum stated that because of the flier, he was unsure as to whether he could support Martinez if he were to win the primary.

That night a television ad from the Martinez campaign started airing in conservative north Florida, which implied that McCollum supported gay rights and gay marriage. The ad would be quickly noticed.

Also, McCollum's campaign started running a radio ad that called into question Martinez' performance as Housing and Urban Development secretary. That ad would also be noticed.

Saturday August 28

After immediate criticism of the ad, Mel Martinez pulled it. According to Governor Bush, he had asked Martinez to withdraw it, but Martinez had already decided to do so before his conversation with the governor. Nevertheless, the ad continued to air until Monday (due to television stations not being fully manned on weekends).

The White House issued a statement defending Martinez' tenure at Hud, which said "
"The president appreciates Mel Martinez's service to his administration and to the country."

The St Petersburg Times and Miami Herald released a poll showing McCollum at 32%, Martinez close behind at 30%, with 23% undecided (5.7% margin of error)

Sunday August 29

Sunday was reasonably quiet as the candidates started to make their final tour of the state in their quest for votes.

Monday August 30

The St Petersburg Times took the "almost unprecedented step" of rescinding its recommendation of Martinez. The editorial that took away the endorsement from Martinez and McCollum stated

No matter what else Martinez may accomplish in public life, his reputation will be forever tainted by his campaign's nasty and ludicrous slurs of McCollum in the final days of this race. The slurs culminated with Martinez campaign advertisements that label McCollum - one of the most conservative moralists in Washington during his 20 years as a U.S. representative - "the new darling of the homosexual extremists" because he once favored a hate crime law that had bipartisan support. A few days earlier, the Martinez campaign arranged a conference call with reporters in which a group of right-wing Martinez supporters labeled McCollum "antifamily." Why? Because McCollum supports expanded stem cell research to find cures for deadly diseases - a position that is identical to those of Nancy Reagan, Connie Mack and many other prominent Republicans.

...

Until this embarrassing campaign, Martinez also had a reputation as a pragmatic leader more interested in solving problems than in spouting ideological cliches. Before joining the Bush administration as Housing secretary, Martinez was chairman of Orange County government, a nonpartisan position in which he won praise across the political spectrum.

We don't think Martinez really believes the slurs his campaign has directed at McCollum. Instead, he is an ambitious politician who has resorted to unprincipled tactics to get elected. Unfortunately, dirty campaigns often succeed, and Martinez is betting this one will, too.

Needless to say McCollum broadcast this news far and wide. With this change, he now had endorsements from three of the five largest newspapers in Florida (the Tampa Tribune and Jacksonville's Florida Times-Union being the other two). Nearly every other paper endorsed Martinez.

An Insider Advantage poll taken on Friday and Saturday of 400 likely voters showed Martinez at 32% and McCollum at 31% with 21% undecided.

Tuesday August 31

Voters go to the polls.

Early voting began two weeks ago, but it doesn't appear that a truly significant number of voters availed themselves of the opportunity.

Voters in counties affected by Hurricane Charley are going to the polls, even though in some cases they are located intents and the number of precints open is much lower than normal.

Turnout predictions are all over the place, varying wildly upon the county. Some of the heavily Republican counties in North Florida are expecting 40%-50% turnout due to some of the local races being decided today. Because of the mayor's election in Miami, turnout is expected to be high there as well. Elsewhere, turnout is expected to be around 30%, if not lower. The Senate race has been relatively low profile and when it did make the headlines in the last week, it wasn't exactly in a way that would encourage people who wouldn't be voting otherwise.

No one has the win psychology going into today, although the Martinez campaign has tried hard to establish it. The past week pretty much demolished their efforts of establishing Martinez as a candidate that was confident of winning.

It is not clear how much damage the past few days have done to Martinez. Nevertheless, it seems that Martinez is still expected to pull this one out with superior grass-roots organization.

While the Republican side of the race is expected to be close, the Democrat side is not. Betty Castor held a double digit lead over Peter Deutsch and everyone not affiliated with the Deutsch campaign in some way has declared Castor to be the winner.