There's A New Dance Craze Among Florida Republicans-- The Tallahassee Twist

Statewide, Florida voters have been rejecting corrupt, right-wing ideologue Bill McCollum for many years. After two decades of disgracing himself in the House-- he was one of the leaders of the attempted coup against President Clinton-- he ran, unsuccessfully, for the Senate against Bill Nelson in 2000 and, in the GOP primary, against Mel Martinez in 2004. This month he was the favored candidate of the Tallahassee Establishment to replace Charlie Crist as governor. He lost again-- and not just lost; he lost to Rick Scott, a former Missouri donut maker who went on to national fame as a career criminal, defrauding Medicaid and Medicare of millions of dollars and incurring $1.7 billion in fines. He was kicked out of his company but somehow managed to avoid prison. He beat McCollum 47-43% in the primary and will now face one of Florida's most respected and well-liked political leaders, state CFO Alex Sink.

An aside before we get into Rick Scott. This morning Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice wrote on the futility of McCollum's immigrant bashing even in the Republican primary. Florida's not Arizona and it's not buying the hate. The bare bones:

Attorney General Bill McCollum was the favorite in the GOP gubernatorial primary, with a moderate record on immigration and strong support from Latino Republicans. His opponent Rick Scott, a political newcomer and self-funded multi-millionaire, decided to make a name for himself by riding the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment so popular with a segment of the Republican base. He emphasized his strong support for an Arizona-like immigration law in Florida and painted McCollum as soft on illegal immigration. Still, once McCollum started attacking Scott as a shady businessman, he regained the lead and was expected to win.

In what proved to be the fatal move of his campaign, McCollum introduced his own version of an Arizona-type law less than two weeks before the primary. McCollum called on the Florida state legislature to enact it in September and bragged that the bill was tougher than Arizona’s.

Turns out, McCollum’s strategy of trying to outflank Scott on immigrant bashing backfired. McCollum rapidly lost support from Latino leaders, and faced a backlash in the press.  On Tuesday, many Latinos in Miami-Dade County stayed home. Turnout in what was expected to be a McCollum stronghold was less than 17%, while statewide turnout was 21%. Scott raced over the finish line and pulled off the come-from-behind upset.

When Scott, the much-despised billionaire, first announced his intention to run against the colorless and plodding McCollum, the Tallahassee GOP Establishment was dismissive, then mortified-- and finally, pissed off. It was widely held that the tarnished image of the Florida Republican Party would be irreparably damaged by a crook-- and an extremist crook at that-- like Scott at the head of the ticket. The Republican elite rallied around McCollum and in many cases attacked Scott with more venom then they use even against Democrats. Current state party leaders, chairman John Thrasher, state Senator Mike Haridopolos, and state Representative Dean Cannon, helped fund vicious attack ads against Scott. This was a particularly appropriate ad that the next Republican House Speaker, Dean Cannon, funded to the tune of almost three quarters of a million dollars:



Although McCollum is still bitter, still grousing and still refusing to back Scott, the rest of the party developed instant amnesia and jumped onto the Rick Scott teabagger bandwagon, though not with much gusto. Let's help some of the more prominent of them remember what they had to say about the gubernatorial nominee they'll all embracing now.

After Jim Greer, the last Republican Party Chairman, was caught stealing, arrested and hauled off to jail, his replacement, John Thrasher wasn't shy about pointing out how Scott was smearing the entire GOP with Greer's criminal behavior. "Over the last several weeks and in an escalated manner this weekend," Thrasher wrote in an August 23rd press release, "Rick Scott has orchestrated a multifaceted campaign of misinformation in an effort to mislead Florida voters and confuse the facts surrounding the arrest and indictment of Jim Greer as well as the Party's financial situation and preparedness to support our candidates as we move towards the November election." That didn't work and he and Scott are posing as BFFs now.

State Senate leader Mike Haridopolous criticized Scott for being afraid "stand up in front of people and take questions." He then funneled contributions to the Florida First Initiative for a television ad attacking "Rick Scott, on his tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the U.S." The ad featured "former U.S. Attorney A.G. (Alec) Alexander III, who from 2002 to 2010 was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, focusing primarily on health care fraud."



According to the June 29th issue of the Jacksonville Observer Dean Cannon "steered money from his Florida Liberty Fund to the Florida First Committee, which earlier this month ran a $600,000 weeklong statewide television spot accusing McCollum rival Rick Scott of profiting from the 'largest Medicare fraud in American history.' All told, Cannon has poured $727,000 ... into the committee."

Other Florida Republicans now sucking up to him include ex-Punta Gorda state Rep. Lindsay Harrington who told the Sarasota Herald Tribune in July that Scott's "candidacy is based on monies that could have been defrauded from the United States government." And Broward County's Republican State Committeeman Ed Kennedy told the Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel two days later that Scott is "dangerous to vote for." A prominent Hillsborough GOP activist, Angela Panezza apparent agrees: "If it comes down to it, I've got to say that I probably would vote for Alex Sink." Gary Lee head of the Lee County Republican Party put it another way to the News-Press: "About all I know is what I have heard about a shady past, running a company that was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud."

And then there's a Republican who really understands fraud better than most. Rudi Giuliani chimed in with an exceptionally unflattering description of Scott a few days before the vote explaining that Scott is "someone who was fired from his company" after it engaged in a multimillion-dollar fraud.

Scott is hoping to keep a low profile and just use his personal wealth to flood the Florida airwaves with TV and radio ads and brainwash an easily brainwashed electorate. He's unlikely to accept Alex Sink's challenge to five debates. He had refused to appear on TV with McCollum in any debates and most Tallahassee Republicans say he's either unaware of the issues or unwilling to share his views on them with the voters. As Lake County GOP Chairman Joseph Rudderow told the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel late in July, "He's become more like a product the consumer is going to pull off the shelf." Nancy McGowan, a vice president of the Republican Women's Club of Duval County put it another way: "No one knows who he is or what he stands for." And a few days before the primary Jack Furnari, Assistant Vice Chairman of the Palm Beach County Republican Party told the Sun-Sentinel "...I think he's demonstrated an appalling lack of respect for the voting public." 

On the other hand, he put $50 million of his own money into the race so he doesn't much care what any of these pipsqueaks have to say. And at least he isn't David M. Rivera.

Florida-- A Beacon Of Hope?

It's been a really good week politically in the Sunshine State so far. Republican hopes to pull off another Scott Brown shocker were dashed when Ed Lynch got clobbered Tuesday night by Democratic state Senator Ted Deutch. In 2008 Lynch was swamped by long-time incumbent Robert Wexler (of Firebreathing Liberal fame) with 66% of the vote. Deutch, relatively unknown in much of the district, drew 64%). Lynch and the GOP had tried to turn the special election to replace Wexler into a referendum on Obama in general and healthcare reform in particular. Obama won the district in 2008 with 65% and healthcare reform is something most normal people (i.e., non-Glenn Beck viewers) see as a positive. Tone deaf and clueless, Lynch and the Republicans-- deeply ensconced in their own Hate Talk Radio/Fox bubble-- insisted that Deutch’s aggressive and unwavering support of the health care law would prove politically fatal. It was fatal-- for Lynch.

Democrats in District 19-- which mixes a big chunk of Palm Beach County with a smaller piece of Broward-- gave Deutch, his campaign team, local Party leaders and a legion of volunteers the solid turnout and big win they yearned and worked so hard for.

Several key political points were made here-- from a cleansing of the political palate following Republican Scott Brown's Massachusetts Senate win a few months ago, to a road-test of the grassroots organizing and Get Out The Vote capacities of the local Democratic party in advance of November, to a "bring it on" response to GOP efforts to make the race a referendum on President Obama and health reform.

All those points were scored, emphatically, with high style marks all the way around.
Some in politics and media-- Republicans, The Tea Party, Fox News-- will maintain that because the 19th District is predominantly Democratic and liberal, this big Deutch win is not real news.

But over this past year of health reform Town Halls and Tea Party frenzy, some among the traditional Democratic Party faithful, especially Senior Citizens, became confused and/or disillusioned with their customary political brand of choice. It was a potential vulnerability that Deutch's Republican opponent, Ed Lynch, tried to tap into and exploit. But no such luck. Instead, Democrats rallied back together around a great candidate, and gave him a great win.

That is not only real news-- it is really good news for the Florida Democratic Party moving forward in this critical 2010 election year. And it is not very good news for the state's ultra-partisan politicians and calculating Republican candidates like U.S. Senate hopeful Marco Rubio, who are counting on continuing to use the Politics of Fear & Confusion to influence people and win votes.

Public servants who, like Ted Deutch, aspire to be statesmen rather than simply settling for being politicians, can cut right through that kind of divisive politics. Deutch has already demonstrated in the State Senate that those whom we elect to government can still work in bipartisan fashion to achieve great things for the benefit of The Common Good-- not for Democrats vs. Republicans, not for Liberals over Conservatives, but rather for the community benefit of the hard-working general public.

Meanwhile, further north, Gainesville not only elected a progressive as its new mayor, they elected openly gay City Commissioner Craig Lowe, who had been under vicious attack by deranged Republican homophobes.

And the quarterly fundraising reports show that the GOP's top national target, Rep. Alan Grayson from Orlando, who takes no money from lobbyists, banksters or anyone with business before his committees, raised more money-- almost entirely from small grassroots donations-- than anyone else running for Congress in the United States, his second quarter in a row with over $800,000.

With Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink already making headway, the GOP just got thrown for a loop when their handpicked establishment candidate, Bill McCollum, got a big spending extremist jumping in against him, multimillionaire teabagger Rick Scott, one of the most loathsome creatures to ever pop up in American politics. On his first day in the race, he blanketed the Florida airwaves with $1.5 million in ads-- right out of what he's stolen from the various healthcare companies he's defrauded over the years. And McCollum went batshitcrazy:

Rick Scott's aggressive new campaign for governor is gleefully distributing yesterday's talking points circulated by Scott's rival Attorney General Bill McCollum, until yesterday the presumptive GOP nominee.

The talking points include a section headed "Off Record/Surrogates" that goes after Scott on his obvious vulnerability: The hospital company he lead, Columbia/HCA, pled guilty to massive fraud charges after his departure. Scott says the company should have fought the charges, but it's a hard thing to recover from.

A slightly more surprising line in the talking points charges that Scott-- who started harshly attacking the health care legislation while many Republicans were still taking a wait-and-see approach-- didn't fight hard enough.

"He abandoned the fight against the Democrats once the public option was dropped," say the talking points, which have the name of McCollum's communications director, Kristy Campbell, attached.
They also include a link to a slashing video from Health Care for America Now, a frontal attack on Scott from the left, and an unflattering New York Times profile.

I hope we'll be seeing plenty of this delightful ad again, paid for with plenty of GOP dollars:



Scott, predictably, is slinging the mud just as hard. Should be as much fun as Crist vs Rubio. Speaking of which... Rubio has been floating the rumor for months that Crist would wind up running as an independent. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal picked it up and amplified it gigantically.

Hounded by conservative activists as too liberal, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is being advised by some close supporters to abandon his lagging Republican primary bid for a U.S. Senate seat and run instead as an independent.

Mr. Crist's campaign issued a statement last week saying the governor would run in the Republican primary and describing the talk of an independent bid as "baseless rumors.''

Still, some advisers see room for him to take another course. Mr. Crist is trailing badly in public-opinion surveys against state House Speaker Marco Rubio, who has become a darling of conservative activists nationally.

Florida law doesn't give Mr. Crist the flexibility that enabled Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to win election in 2006 as a third-party candidate after losing the Democratic primary. Mr. Crist must decide by April 30 whether to seek the Republican nomination or to appear instead on the general-election ballot with no party affiliation.

An important sign of Mr. Crist's aims could come this week: He must decide by Friday whether to veto a teacher merit-pay bill supported by prominent conservatives in the party.

"If you were to put a gun to my head, I'd say he's running as an independent," said a GOP strategist who serves as an informal adviser to the governor.

His exit from the primary would mark the biggest win yet this year for the GOP's conservative wing, which is trying to pressure the party to strictly oppose Democratic policy initiatives, such as the economic-stimulus initiative and a cap-and-trade energy program, both of which Mr. Crist has at times embraced. But the move would also present those activists with a risk. Should Mr. Crist win the Senate seat as an independent or serve as a spoiler by splitting the GOP and helping to hand the seat to Democrats, it could undermine their argument that the party can best help itself by moving to the right.

One longtime adviser to the governor said vetoing the education bill-- which would eliminate the possibility of tenure for new teachers and create a new pay scale linked to student performance-- would allow Mr. Crist essentially to kick off an independent candidacy with a bang. Rejecting the measure could draw support from one of the state's most potent Democratic Party interest groups, Florida's 140,000-member teachers union, which opposes the legislation.

...[S]ome Republicans see a number of Mr. Crist's recent actions as signals that he is moving closer to an independent run.

Last week, Mr. Crist vetoed a campaign-finance bill that was a GOP priority. In addition, he is weighing whether to call the legislature into special session during the summer to discuss ethics legislation, a move that could highlight recent Republican scandals and try to signal the governor's independence from the party.

Several Crist supporters said he would prefer to win the GOP nomination. The governor is spending $1 million to air negative ads targeting Mr. Rubio-- an effort, some Crist supporters said, to test the former speaker's vulnerability before the governor is forced to decide whether to remain in the primary.

All that said (and keeping in mind that the newest Quinnipiac polling shows that Crist would win the Senate seat as an independent), the two most important opportunities for progressives in Florida this year-- aside from beating back the reactionary menace by helping Grayson win a decisive victory-- are red-to-blue pickups by great Democratic House candidates in FL-12 (Doug Tudor) and FL-16 (Dave Lutrin). Oh-- and then there's this...

Rightist Bloggers Crying About Cornyn & The NRSC Again

First deranged Georgia extremist Erick Erickson started a Facebook page called Not one penny to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and started sending out anti GOP messages:

First they supported Chafee.

Then they supported Specter.

Now they support Crist.

I pledge to give no money, no support, no aid, and no help at all to the efforts of the NRSC.

There are scores of messages from angry and disallusioned Republicans threatening to join millions of normal Americans in dropping their GOP registrations. Then Erickson teamed up with another lunatic fringe wingnut, John Hawkins to send a petition to Cornyn demanding he rescind the NRSC's endorsement of the Republican Party's one outreach to a gay candidate. And when they got on a conference call with him yesterday he refused to respond to any political questions, pissing them off even more. Maybe that's why Erickson sent me this today:

Subject: Charlie Crist admits he'll be just like Arlen Specter

Florida media is reporting that, having taking [sic] the "no tax" pledge from American for Tax Reform last week, Governor Crist will not use his veto pen to stop the Florida Legislature from raising taxes to balance the state's budget.

More troubling, Governor Crist himself said yesterday that were he in the United States Senate, he would have voted with Arlen Specter to support Barack Obama's +$1 trillion stimulus bill.

Senator Mel Martinez voted against the bill.  Crist's Republican primary challenger, Marco Rubio, also opposed the stimulus.

Nonetheless, Senator John Cornyn, the NRSC, and the Senate Republican leadership have lined up behind the tax hiking, Obama supporting Florida Governor.

Call John Cornyn at 202-224-2934 and ask him if his endorsement of Charlie Crist is an admission the GOP should stand for nothing in order to win.

It sure seems that way.

Erick

On top of all that this video is driving the nutroots crazy crazier:



I wish them all the success in the world-- and was delighted that they managed to scare off the Republican Party of Florida from continuing to back Crist and that they attack him at every opportunity-- and we should all do everything we can to make sure Marco Rubio is the GOP candidate for the Florida Senate seat, something that would make all the wingers happy as clams-- until the inevitable Election Day vote count. Rubio is widely viewed as unelectable to any statewide office, although it is the very self-righteous extremism which so turns off mainstream voters that gets the lunatic fringe wet in their panties.


UPDATE: Erick The Red's Newst Attack On The NRSC

Maybe he expected something different from the NRSC? I mean the "R" stands for Republicans. This is what they do. Or have you been sleepwalking?

Subject: What is the NRSC hiding?

Yesterday, I ambled over to John Cornyn’s page on Facebook and wrote on his wall.

I told him, very politely, that I was disappointed in the NRSC endorsement of Crist. At a time when Senator Cornyn says we can capitalize on the anxiety people have about spending and deficits, it undermines his goal by endorsing a man who supports the spending and deficits and also says he’d vote for Obama’s stimulus.

Senator Cornyn responded that given a recent third party poll showing Crist at 54% and Rubio at 18%, Crist is the candidate who can hold the seat and the NRSC wanted to go on and support him.

I responded that there were more than 365 days before the election, Crist was elected statewide with high name identification, and Rubio has 365 + days to show people that Crist would support the policies that are increasingly unpopular in Florida.

I tell you this all here because you cannot now go to John Cornyn’s page at Facebook to see the exchange.

Whoever runs the page for him has deleted it.

That's a shame.

Erick

The influential and extremist GOP fringe group, Club For Greed jumped into the Florida controversy opposing Cornyn (again). The shady group's fanatic president, defeated member of Congress Chris Chocola, went on the attack against fellow Republican Charlie Crist. “Charlie Crist has shown he’s willing to say one thing and do another,” he said, in reference to Crist signing off on a budget to rescue Florida's devastated economy. The bill included a cigarette tax hike and was presented to him by a Republican state Senate and a Republican House. “Voters," Chocola continued, "deserve to know just how far he'll go for the sake of political expediency.” Chocola supports far right extremist Marco Rubio. Rubio is also being supported-- although not publicly-- by dangerous right-wing fanatics, the Diaz-Balart brothers, former Cuban terrorists currently representing two Miami Dade districts in Congress.

And the bloodletting between Crist and "Jeb Bush's personal hand-puppet" is spilling over into the rest of the Florida electoral battles. Many are not happy with the far right's gubernatorial candidate, ex-Congressman (and Bill Clinton inquisitor) Bill McCollum.

This is just what the Republican Party needs-- fresh blood, a young buck, a visionary whippersnapper.

Enter Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a man never shy about resisting the burdens of charisma, who has proclaimed his desire to succeed Gov. Charlie Crist.

In an announcement that had all the thrilling excitement of a novena, McCollum, who will be 66 come election day next year, launched his gubernatorial bid surrounded by more middle-aged white men than the Gasparilla Krewe.

The aging Howdy Doody of Florida politics has held this strange sway over the state Republicans. For McCollum it is always his "turn" at bat, pursuing nominations for higher office as if it was a matter of sub-tropical Manifest Destiny.

Back in the 2000 U.S. Senate race, Tom Gallagher, an infinitely better candidate with superb retail stump skills, was pressured to step aside by Gov. Jeb Bush and other party leaders to make room for then U.S. Rep. McCollum. At the time, it was felt McCollum had earned the right to run against Bill Nelson based on his leading role in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.

That's not a political campaign. It's awarding a nomination as if it was a Miss Congeniality contest. So McCollum won his party's sash and now Bill Nelson is in his second term as Florida's senior U.S. senator. Say, that was some keen political strategizing.

Now Florida's Republican mandarins are once more lining up like Apollo Creed's entourage in Rocky behind the Urkel of Tallahassee's quest for the governor's mansion.

Just how pulse-challenged is McCollum? His presumptive Democratic opponent is Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who also has never been confused with Charo when it came to an effervescent presence on the hustings. Yet, compared to McCollum, Sink is now being touted in some circles as a veritable Margaret Thatcher meets Cher of the 2010 gubernatorial contest.

McCollum has been marketed as a steady, experienced candidate who has been repeatedly tested in the political arena, which is a nice way of saying this chap is extraordinarily skilled at giving concession speeches.

Still, if you are a Republican power broker sitting around the men's grill contemplating your goblet of 300-year-old Glennfidditch, no doubt McCollum's jib might well be to your liking - as jibs go. After all, throughout his political career McCollum has carved out a reputation as a highly partisan conservative Republican true believer.

So it had to leave some of the GOP purists standing behind McCollum choking on their Monte Cristos when the candidate suddenly started singing Kumbaya at his campaign announcement, albeit the Lawrence Welk version.

Doing his best impression of Mr. Rogers, McCollum noted he wanted everyone to be his neighbor, insisting he would reach across party lines and welcome bipartisan access and inclusion.

Of course when, according to several recent polls, only about 23 percent of the body politic regard themselves as Republican, one better give at least lip service to wanting to dance around the maypole with all manner of constituencies, unless one aspires to become less relevant than Katherine Harris.

Considering all the GOP smoking jackets slapping him on the back, McCollum's conversion to diversity did seem a bit odd. After all, when Gov. Charlie Crist starting palling around with less the than ideologically pure such as Democrats and independents, going so far as to heretically appear on a dais with the president of the United States in support of Barack Obama's stimulus package (Oh dear!), he was vilified by the Roundhead wing of the Republican Party as the Lord Haw-Haw of the Tallahassee's Apalachee Parkway.

Indeed, Crist was regarded as such a Republican apostate, when the popular governor announced his own intention to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez, the keepers of the Republican Da Vinci code of conservatism promptly started pimping Jeb Bush's personal hand puppet, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, as a more worthy and dogmatically acceptable alternative.

Apparently news that the Republican gubernatorial primary was supposed to be more of an exclusive affair than a Skull and Bones smoker, didn't find its way to Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, who had been mulling over the race himself and whether Mrs. Bronson would let him go out and play. She didn't, and on Thursday he announced he won't run.

And thus the GOP apparently gets a clear primary pathway for a candidate whose prospects for election are at best problematic, while causing mischief in a Senate campaign where Crist is a virtual lock to win.

Perhaps this is what happens when the Republican brain trust regards 23 percent party identification as a mandate, rather than a product recall.

Republican Civil War-- Florida And Kentucky, Mostly Florida

Perhaps Florida Governor Charlie Crist, now the controversial NRSC pick for the Florida Republican Senate primary, should send Michael Steele a thank you card. The clownish head of the RNC, who's still allowed to talk but not allowed to spend money, bowed to pressure from the party's nutroots-- which has called for a financial boycott of the NRSC-- and told Meet the Press that he would not endorse Crist. I guess that fits nice and smoothly with Steele's homophobia.

I'm sure Crist considers himself better off not being endorsed by a walking, talking national punch-line. And it wouldn't surprise me if Rubio feels more comfortable with neutrality than with an endorsement of Steele. Interestingly, though, Steele wasn't the only high-profile Republican "leader" refusing to endorse another Republican yesterday. Although he wasn't invited onto any real TV shows this weekend, Mitch McConnell hissed his disapproval of poor beleaguered Jim Bunning on Fox News Sunday when he was asked, point blank, to endorse his fellow Kentucky Republican for re-election. (What a bitch!)

CHRIS WALLACE: Finally, your fellow Republican senator from the state of Kentucky, Jim Bunning , is mad at you, I think it’s fair to say. He says you don’t want him to seek re-election and that while you’ve given money to other GOP incumbents, you’ve stiffed him.

You can put this all to rest right now, Senator. I’m going to give you the opportunity. Do you endorse Jim Bunning for re-election?

MISS MCCONNELL: Well, what’s happening in Kentucky, obviously, is the race has not yet formed. Senator Bunning has encouraged someone to file an exploratory committee. There are now two exploratory committees. And there’s a Democratic primary on the other side. I think it’s safe to say the Kentucky Senate race is unfolding.

WALLACE: I didn’t hear an endorsement there. You usually endorse as the Senate...

MCCONNELL: Well, it’s -- it’s just not clear exactly who the players are going to be in Kentucky.

WALLACE: So you’re not endorsing him.

MCCONNELL: It’s not clear who the players are going to be yet.

WALLACE: I tried.

MCCONNELL: You did.

Now, back to Florida, where there's a lot more at stake than the cat fight over who's the real Republican, Marco Rubio or Charlie Crist. Another lunatic fringe Republican from the Rubio wing of the party, Bill McCollum, an ex-congressman who was widely considered the most corrupt legislator in Washington, is announcing his candidacy for governor today. Republican leaders are feigning excitement and even strong-arming other contenders out of the way so McCollum has no primary opponent.

But behind the scenes, and usually off the record, there are serious concerns in party circles that the party is putting too much stock in McCollum's chances against Democratic candidate Alex Sink, a charismatic former banker with Republican appeal who could be the state's first female governor.

Demographically, McCollum presents voters with everything that the Republican Party is struggling with these days, said David Johnson, a Republican political consultant based in Atlanta.

McCollum, who will be 65 in July, is an older white politician who could struggle to win over independent women, young voters and minorities, who make up key voting groups along the pivotal Interstate 4 corridor where so many Florida races are decided.

"He's not very exciting," said Johnson. "He's not your charismatic rising star. He's more of your solid party man."

And while he will campaign on his career as a public servant, at the same time it will be difficult for him to campaign against big government when he has been a part of government for most of the last 30 years, said Chris Ingram, a Republican campaign consultant based in Tampa... "If we nominate Bill McCollum, it's over," said Ingram.

Say goodnight, Gracie.