TAMPA — To paraphrase the late Joe Heller’s description of Major
Major, a character in Catch-22, Heller’s snarky but
funny 1961 novel — Republican Mel Martinez’s Senate career,
among careers lacking distinction, lacks more distinction than
most. Few will mourn his departure when he leaves the Senate.
Martinez rose without a trace from Orange County (Orlando)
politics to be W’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,
the backwater office in any Republican administration, and then
rode W’s coattails to a U.S. Senate seat in 2004 by a whisker.
In the intervening four years Martinez annoyed Florida’s
conservative voters by joining with Ted Kennedy and John McCain
to whoop up the “We Don’t Need No Stinking Borders Act of 2007,”
referred to, eccentrically, in some quarters as the immigration
reform bill. Martinez, a Cuban-American, managed to alienate
conservatives without cutting much ice with Florida’s Hispanic
voters, who voted for McCain in smaller numbers in 2008 than they
voted for W in 2004.
Since being elected, Martinez has spent little time with
Florida’s Republican clubs or at county Republican Party
meetings, and has earned something of a reputation for
indifferent constituent service work.
Martinez was urged to run for the Senate in 2004 by W, with the
help of intervening personal efforts by Karl Rove, at least
partly, perhaps mainly, to block former Florida secretary of
state Katherine Harris from seeking the office. Harris, who went
on to lose a Senate race in a landslide in 2006, was a hero to
many Republicans for sticking with her man, W, in the 2000
presidential election and its operatic aftermath, and a
boogey-man (boogey-woman?) to Democrats for the same reason.
National Republicans were convinced, probably accurately, that
Harris would lose in 2004. So when Martinez edged out Democrat
Betty Castor, they thought they had gotten away with something.
But it soon became clear that Martinez’s time in the Senate would
be a wasted interval, no more than a holding pattern. The man has
no vision of where the country should be, and few visible
political skills. He’s a nice enough man, but on the stump he’s a
lava lamp without the charisma. He never really warmed to the
office that he had no business winning, and Floridians never
warmed to him.
So to the relief of many Republicans in Florida, and to the
indifference of many more Floridians who don’t even know he
exists, Martinez announced this week that he won’t ask to
re-enlist in 2010 when his Senate term expires. Now Florida
Republicans have a second reason, along with the re-election
Tuesday of Republican Saxby Chambliss in neighboring Georgia, to
cut back on their anti-depressant medicine.
Ever-unimaginative, Martinez denied his decision not to run was
based on his bleak prospects of being re-elected in 2010. He said
— as almost every politician looking down the barrel of a likely
electoral loss says — that he wants to (all together now) spend
more time with his family. You have to wonder if guys who say
this also earlier in life told their grade school teachers that
the dog ate their homework.
Regardless of how eager Mel is to return to hearth and home in
Florida, he certainly would be problematic in 2010. “If his poll
numbers were any lower, he’d trip over them,” a local Republican
consultant told me. A Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday showed
Martinez with 42 percent job approval and 33 percent who said
they didn’t like the job he was doing. Only 36 percent of those
polled said he deserved a second term, with 38 percent saying he
should find another job. Numbers to make a Democratic
politician’s mouth water.
THANKS TO MARTINEZ’S move, the chances of the Republican Party
holding at least one U.S. Senate seat in Florida after November
2010 are much increased, as is the possibility that there will
once again be someone named Bush in national office. No good
news, bad news jokes here please. The Bush in question is former
Florida Governor Jeb Bush, still popular when he left office in
January of 2007, and who has not suffered from his older
brother’s popularity infarction. “I’m considering it,” Bush said
when asked if he was interested in the race.
Bush’s entry into the race would clear the bench on the
Republican side, as no one in that outfit wants to go up against
the still-popular Bush in a primary. Bush has instant name-ID and
an instant organization, along with the ability to raise gobs of
money. Florida Republicans have other attractive candidates for
the office, including Bartow Congressman Adam Putnam and former
Florida House Speaker Allan Bense of Panama City. But Bush is the
strongest contender by far. The other players are waiting to see
what he’ll do.
The strongest horses seeking the Democratic nomination are likely
Pam Iorio, the current mayor of Tampa, or Alex Sink, Florida’s
current chief financial officer. Sink is probably the stronger
candidate. Unlike so many Democratic politicians, former bank
president Sink has actually held and thrived in responsible
private sector jobs. She’s the wife of former Florida
gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride, who lost to Bush in 2002.
(Rematch, anyone?) Iorio has always worked in government.
Advantage Bush in either case.
If there’s a wildcard on the Republican side, it’s current
Florida Governor Charlie Crist. The folks around Crist insist he
wants to be re-elected governor in 2010. Maybe so. But Crist
would be term-limited out of the governor’s mansion after 2014,
and second terms as governor, like second terms as President, are
often not successful.
Those who’ve been around Crist for his entire political career
know his eyes are always on the next prize, than which there can
be no bigger prize than President. The man really wants it. So
what could be better preparation for a run at the presidency than
a term as governor of one of the biggest and most dynamic states
in the union followed by national experience in the Senate?
A Bush/Crist primary battle would be spectator sport at the
highest level. Political junkies and political reporters would
love it. But you can be sure neither man relishes the prospect,
and Republican officials would very much like to avoid it. They’d
rather see either man win in 2010 than see the two beat
themselves up to the benefit of the Democratic candidate.
Jeb better not take too long to make up his mind.
