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Campaign Crawlers
A Florida Senate Primer
Folks like Mike Haridopolos are lining up to oust moderate sounding, liberal voting incumbent Bill Nelson.
TAMPA — The candidates for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Florida clearly believe red-meat conservatism will be the favored flavor among R primary voters in 2012, as it was in 2010. They’re probably correct.
Whether unapologetic conservatism is the key to beating liberal Democratic (pardon the redundancy) incumbent Bill Nelson in the general election is still unclear. In the few polls taken so far, “generic Republican” is competitive against Nelson, while the four actually running don’t do so swell. But it’s early.
In 2010 former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, now U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, came out of right field to beat the establishment’s candidate, formerly popular Florida Charlie Crist, by 20 points. He was the most conservative state-wide victor Florida has seen in several cycles. Three Republicans won cabinet posts in 2010 pushing conservative agendas. The state’s U.S. House delegation became more R, a one-sided 19-6 majority now for the GOP. Bite-your-ankles conservative Republican Allen West even defeated a Democratic incumbent in limousine-liberal Palm Beach County.
Republicans eager to strap on Nelson include Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, former U.S. Senator George LeMieux, and former Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner. Orlando area steak-house restaurateur Craig Miller, oh-for-one in congressional races, says he’ll decide soon whether to add his name to the Senate menu. Mike McCalister, a Tea-Party friendly retired Army colonel, has also thrown his hat in, but showed little ability to attract votes or attention in his 2010 race for governor.
Depending on how much 2012 turns out to be like 2010, these candidates are either fighting the last war or telling primary voters what they’re eager to hear. So far, not many Floridians are focused on the Senate race or the presidential sweepstakes. In all the polls in both races the most favored candidate now is a guy named “Undecided.” This will give way as summer fades to fall and we’re looking down the barrel of the Iowa caucuses and the first primaries.
So far Hasner appears to have a lead in the race to be crowned the real and true conservative. In a campaign that mimics Rubio’s 2010 race both in ideology and strategy, Hasner is crisscrossing the state highlighting the urgency of cutting federal spending and regulation and following a strong foreign policy based on defending America’s security interests. He was the first of the candidates to endorse the Ryan plan for dealing with Medicare.
Just as Rubio’s 2010 campaign attracted the support of Florida and national conservative household names, bagging almost all of them well before Election Day, Hasner so far has collected the endorsements of conservative broadcasters Monica Crowley and Mark Levin, Red State’s Erick Erickson, and Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment Chairman Ken Blackwell.
LeMieux is angling to get back to Washington. He was appointed by former Florida Governor Charlie Crist to serve the last 16 months of the term of Mel Martinez, who resigned from his Senate seat in August 2009. During LeMieux’s short time in Washington he compiled what the ideological rating agencies deem to be a conservative voting record. In his campaign so far LeMieux has criticized Obama and Nelson for incontinent federal spending and for socialist overreaches such as Obamacare. When Crist broke wide left and became an independent during the 2010 Senate race, LeMieux made a clean and complete break with Crist and endorsed Rubio.
But it won’t be easy for LeMieux to rid himself of the Ghost of Charlies Past. LeMieux says he rejects the leftist stands Crist took in the Senate race and before, including Crist’s 2007 attempt to saddle Florida with its own cap and trade system. But his opponents claim that LeMieux, who was Crist’s chief of staff for years, was in fact the architect of these liberal positions.
To the extent that 2012 is still a Tea Party year, and if it’s still an advantage to be an outsider, LeMieux will have to deal with the image of a Washington insider. Thursday a clutch of U.S. Senators, including John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Pat Roberts of Kansas are throwing a fund-raiser at The Monocle in Washington for LeMieux. Another sponsor of the event is Pete Rummel, finance chairman of Bob “Bob” Dole’s direction-less 1996 presidential campaign. Can you get any more establishment than this?
Haridopolos has compiled a mostly conservative record during his years in the Florida senate. Under his leadership this year the Florida senate helped deal with a $4 billion deficit in Florida’s budget. The current spending plan eliminates 4,000 state workers and obliges the state’s government school teachers to pay three percent toward their retirement. Way less than folks in the private sector must pay, but three percent more than Florida’s well-compensated government teachers were paying.
But Florida conservatives sniff that Haridopolos got far less than he could have, considering the Florida Legislature is 2-1 Republican and the governor and all cabinet members are Republican. His opponents particularly like to point out that Haridopolos was unable to get any meaningful immigration legislation.
Being senate president, and Haridopolos will continue in that post in 2012, means he will have little trouble raising campaign cash. In the first reporting quarter Haridopolos hauled in $2.6 million.
In a perfect world it wouldn’t matter, but though Haridopolos is 41 he looks 25 and sounds 16. He has a high-pitched voice that is so squeaky it sounds like his nickname should be “Sparky.” He can’t help this, and it’s not fair. But these things might cost him a few points. If he were running for student-body president he would be perfect.
So these are the guys against Nelson, who should be vulnerable. Nelson has voted for cap and trade, Obamacare, and all of the other left phantasms that Floridians consistently tell pollsters they don’t fancy. He doesn’t wear a Mao jacket to work, but he may as well. Any one of the Republican candidates would compile a much more conservative record than Nelson has in his two terms in the Senate.
About the Author
Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa.
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Intelligent Design| 6.22.11 @ 7:01AM
When Obama says "jump", Bill Nelson says, "How high?" Nelson is a model Demo-Socialist in the U.S. Senate. Voters will throw Obama, Nelson and their kind into the garbage truck in 2012. The Republican who will replace Nelson in the Senate is George LeMieux, who did an outstanding job when he was appointed to finish out the term of Mel Martinez, who resigned.
lydia | 6.23.11 @ 10:30AM
he won because idoit Floridians think that his real first name is Anthony and that he has a genie. Hopefully this time he will be exposed for the fraud that he is.
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sandcrab| 6.22.11 @ 7:06AM
This Lake County retiree sez LeMieux ain't got a prayer in the primary. But Nelson will be defeated in 2012.
Michael Tomlinson| 6.22.11 @ 8:18AM
Whoever receives the nomination needs to run the tapes of Nelson warmly supporting Obama after the USN SEALs killed Osama bin Laden. Tie the Obama rat around Nelson's neck and make him live with it.
Below are just a few reasons why Bill "Obama" Nelson will lose.
(1) When Bush left office the unemployment rate was 7.6% under Obama it has been consistently 9-10%.
(2) 13.9 million people in the U.S. are out of work according to the federal government's unemployment calculations.
(3) The number of "discouraged" workers -- those who are out of work but no longer trying to get a job because they consider the prospects to be too poor -- is currently 1.3 million (no doubt a low estimate).
(4) The U.S. labor force, the total of those who are working or actively looking for work, has shrunk by 246,000 people.
(5) The percentage of the working age population that is working or seeking work is now 64%, a 25-year low.
(6) If there 130,500 new jobs per month (Obama's high), it would still take 9 years to get the 13.9 million currently jobless workers back on the job.
(7) The "number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers, because companies are forced to cut their hours to avoid firing them)" was 8.5 million in May.
(8) The poverty rate has increased 8.3% under Obama.
(9) Real median household income under President Bush was $50,112 under the failed policies of Obama it is now $49,777 or a -0.7% decrease.
(10) Under Obama the house marketing is now worse than during FDR's Great Depression. The fall in house prices is now greater than that suffered during FDR’s Great Depression (31% in FDR’s Great Depression -vs. - 33% during Obama’s Depression).
(11) The national debt when President Bush left office in trillions of dollars was $10.627 under Obama it is now $14.052 or a 32.2%. In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history – over 27 times as fast.
(12) He paid the 6 Democrats ruining Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $34.4 million in bonuses.
(13) Obama and the Democrat Congress gave tens of millions of dollars in stimulus money to Democrat tax cheats who owe millions of dollars in back taxes.
(14) According to figures from the Obama administration’s own Bureau of Economic Analysis, for the nine economic quarters that Obama has been in office real annual growth in GDP has been just 1.5 percent. That’s less than half the annual GDP growth during the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. Even more striking is that the rate of growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than during the 1930s — which, of course, was the decade of the Great Depression. In the 1930s, real annual GDP growth was 1.3 percent — just 0.2 percent less than under Obama.
(15) In Egypt his policies are empowering Muslim fundamentalists (Carter II's Iran), in Libya he is supporting al Qaeda militants and in Afghanistan he is ready to make a deal with the Taliban and "share power" with them.
gearjammer| 6.22.11 @ 8:28AM
The dems do well with these former astronauts. John Glenn always won in what was then a pretty conservative Ohio. Be prepared for Mark Kelly in Azizona. the sainted NASA hubby if the sainted Gabby Giffords has submitted his resignation from the Navy. And, guess what ? The sainted couple have just signed a book deal with Simon and Schuster, which I believe is owned by CBS. The democrats are going for the open Arizona senate seat with this guy. Are conservatives and GOP ready ?
Bo| 6.22.11 @ 10:17AM
"Are conservatives and GOP ready ?"
The answer to this question seem to perpetually be a resounding "no".
2Anglico| 6.22.11 @ 8:36AM
This is the race to watch. If Nelson wins, all hope is lost. Nelson is the proto-typical politician. He says NOTHING every time he opens his mouth. He is an empty suit. He is the poster boy for the Peter Principle. He somehow got the job of Insurance Commissioner in Florida and immediately proved beyond any doubt he knew ZERO about insurance. He parlayed that job into his current gig. The man MUST be defeated!
lol wut?| 6.22.11 @ 12:37PM
he won because idoit Floridians think that his real first name is Anthony and that he has a genie. Hopefully this time he will be exposed for the fraud that he is.
Marco| 6.22.11 @ 9:36AM
A fundraiser thrown by McCain, Collins and Murkowski? And he was Crist's right-hand man? Sounds like LeMieux is just another RINO. There are too many of those in the Senate already.
Intelligent Design| 6.22.11 @ 1:29PM
The 2010 National Taxpayers Union’s Rating of Congress scored George LeMieux 93% based on his conservative voting record compared to liberal voting Bill Nelson’s 16%. A Member of Congress’s “Taxpayer Score” reflects his or her commitment to reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation.
RCV| 6.22.11 @ 5:22PM
No wonder the latest poll on RealClearPolitics has Nelson up by twenty points over LeMieux!
PCP Smoker| 6.22.11 @ 9:36PM
Larry is all over Fla. Great stuff. LeMieux will soon become Former FLA Sen. LeMieux. The hunt is on for Rinos in Fla and Hasner has the M-16. Put a bullet right between his eyes.
Nite| 6.22.11 @ 10:11PM
I will vote for the Republican nominee against do nothing Nelson. The Republican has got to be better than Nelson.
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