Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist continues to lead Florida’s U.S. Senate race thanks to significant support from Democrats, according to a poll by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.
The July 16-18 poll of 900 voters suggests U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek would be a stronger Democratic nominee than his primary rival, billionaire Jeff Greene — but either Dem finishes a distant third behind Crist and Republican Marco Rubio.
Crist leads with 35 percent to 29 percent for Rubio and 17 percent for Meek in one hypothetical. With Greene as the nominee, Crist gets 38 percent, Rubio gets 29 percent and Greene gets 13 percent. Libertarian Alex Snitker gets 3 percent with Greene as the Democratic nominee, 4 percent if Meek is the Democrat.
“Crist has become the de facto Democratic nominee and that’s where most of his support is coming from,” pollster Tom Jensen says in a blog post accompanying the new poll release.
Florida House lawmakers won’t let voters decide this year on constitutional ban of oil drilling, House Speaker Larry Cretul said this morning.
Cretul, who let a House committee schedule nearly 50 hours since October to debate the merits of offshore drilling, said there wasn’t enough time to reflect on Crist’s amendment before the Aug. 4 deadline to put questions on the statewide ballot.
“The fact remains (Crist) called us here at the last possible moment to consider a constitutional amendment for which he never proposed language and permitted far too little time for reflection and review, Cretul said. “That is a terrible way to propose constitutional changes.”
Cretul instead created six “work groups” in the House to prepare for another special session later this summer that would provide direct relief for Gulf Shore residents hurt by the spill.
Cretul has not explained why he waited until Crist called this special session before he decided the Gulf Coast needed some relief.
House Democrats asked Cretul shortly after the spill started to start these types of meetings in preparation for a special session.
“There were unreturned phone calls,” House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands said.
Gov. Charlie Crist met with about 50 environmental activists in the Capitol today for the legislature’s special session.
“It’s your constitution. It’s not the House of Representatives constitution. It’s not the Senate’s constitution. It’s not my constitution. It’s the people’s constitution,” he said.
That’s the message this morning from Florida House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands. Sands is seething that the chamber’s Republican majority appears to be on the verge of heading home without a vote on Gov. Charlie Crist’s constitutional amendment to ban offshore drilling.
His main contention is that Republicans are lining up behind a promise from incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Winter Park, that he will abandon his two-year-long attempt to lift the current drilling ban in state law. Democrats and Crist say the drilling ban is more secure in the state constitution, which lawmakers cannot amend without a vote of the people.
“Well my friends, let me tell you that I have an issue with believing what Republicans say,” Sands said. “They also said they weren’t going to raise our taxes. And yet we walked out of session a couple years ago with $2 billion in new taxes. So I have trouble believing them.
“To me, the pledges that the Republicans have taken are written on toilet paper,” Sands said. “And we all know what you can do with toilet paper.”
Heavy favorite Slosberg is suing to try to knock Klasfeld off the ballot, claiming his filing documents are improper.
“He’s acting like a thug,” claims Klasfeld.
The race reprises two of the more memorable campaign slogans in south county politics. Slosberg was elected three times urging voters to “Let Irv Serve.” Klasfeld lost a 2006 primary despite the catchy “Send Klassy to Tallahassee” slogan.
Should Florida voters get to decide whether to amend the state constitution to ban oil drilling?
That seemingly simple question appears likely to prompt political posturing and heated accusations but not necessarily a direct answer in a special session that begins on the matter today.
“There are a lot of politics at play here,” state Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami, said.
Scribbles in my notebook while waiting for state lawmakers to arrive in Tallahassee.
1.) We know at least one thing Larry Cretul’s House will do on Tuesday: They’ll lay out a plan for the coming months so they can return for another special session in September to respond to the effects of the BP oil spill.
2.) What Cretul’s inner circle of House Republicans doesn’t want to do is vote to put on the November ballot Gov. Charlie Crist’s constitutional amendment to ban oil drilling in state waters. Too many Republicans, including incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, would have to explain why they voted last year to lift the ban.
3.) Crist’s amendment in the House (HJR 37C) is sponsored by Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami.
Zapata, who is term limited, tells us that he wouldn’t have carried the bill if he was returning in 2010. “I would want at least one of my bills to be heard next year,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is a lot of retribution in this legislature.”
Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene toned down his attacks on Democratic Senate primary rival Kendrick Meek at Saturday’s Florida Democratic Party dinner in Hollywood, but he’s up with a new TV spot today that pounds “career politician” Meek.
Earlier today, Greene told Meek in a “Dear Kendrick” letter that he’d be responding “quickly, forcefully and truthfully” to a Meek mailer that calls credit default swapper Greene “the worst of Wall Street.”
We reported Saturday that the League of American Voters poured $50k in a political advocacy group working on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum.
Now, the conservative “league,” best known for its anti-Obama activism during the federal health care debate, has a seven-figure buy on Florida TV across the state that uses Medicare fraud and federal stimulus money to attack McCollum’s primary opponent, Rick Scott.
Should state lawmakers put a constitutional amendment on the November statewide ballot that would ban offshore drilling in Florida?
No (65%, 134 Votes)
Yes (35%, 73 Votes)
Total Voters: 207
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Florida lawmakers are trickling into Tallahassee for the start of a special session on Tuesday called by Gov. Charlie Crist. Debate is still raging among Republicans over what to do about the constitutional amendment Crist wants on the November ballot that would ban offshore oil drilling in state waters.
To that end, a Friend of the Blog passed a long a couple of poll questions attached to a statewide survey on behalf of a statewide candidate.
We’re told the poll was taken taken by 700 likely voters on July 8.
1.) Voters were asked which statement more represents their views:
a) The Gulf oil spill shows the danger and enormous environmental damage of offshore oil drilling. We should stop any new offshore wells from being developed. (32 percent)
b) The Gulf oil spill is a tremendous tragedy that must never be repeated. But drilling is going to happen off our coast, we just need to make sure it is done smarter and safer. (65 percent)
2.) Do you approve (48 percent) or disapprove (38 percent) of the way Gov. Charlie Crist has handled the Gulf oil spill?
Facing a tough and well-financed challenge from Republican Allen West and a difficult national climate for Dems, U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, sought to put a jolt in Democratic activists Saturday.
He mentioned Sarah Palin three times, the tea party movement three times and threw in a reference to the 1994 midterm elections, when there was a second-year Democrat in the White House and voters booted Dems from control of the House and Senate.
“We cannot afford to repeat what happened in 1994,” Klein told the crowd of 1,300 at the Florida Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for all of us.”
It’s an open Democratic primary in state House District 86, which includes much of Boynton Beach and Delray Beach.
Carole Penny Kaye hopes that her work for immigration law reform will help her connect with some of the groups in the district. Since she earned her law degree in 1997, Kaye said, “Advocacy work has been the driving pass.on in my life. I have support in the Haitian community, but we have to get them out to vote.”
…
Lori Berman says her first priority would be to improve the state’s economy. Toward that end, she wants to see the state’s schools produce more graduates with skills desirable to the biotech and other new industries.
When Republican Bill McCollum declined to run for a second term as attorney general and instead entered the gubernatorial race in May 2009, he made a Charlie Crist-type commitment to “access and inclusion.”
Party leaders, including those who helped Crist win the office in 2006 and guided him toward sky-high approval ratings, pressured McCollum’s potential primary challengers to stay away.
For nearly a year, it seemed to work: McCollum was coasting toward a November date with the Democratic favorite, Alex Sink, a matchup that polls showed he would win.
Then, his campaign turned on the television in April and saw one Rick Scott ad after the other.
HOLLYWOOD — The crowd at tonight’s Florida Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson dinner gave noticeably louder applause to Senate candidate Kendrick Meek than to primary rival Jeff Greene when both spoke to the crowd of about 1,300.
With the party establishment lined up behind Miami U.S. Rep. Meek in the Senate race, Palm Beach billionaire Greene entered the race shortly before the filing deadline in April and has since pulled even or ahead in primary polls on the strength of a self-financed TV campaign.
“I know some of you were surprised by my entry into the race,” said Greene, who got polite applause when he was introduced early in the program.
HOLLYWOOD — Former U.S. Sen. George McGovern, the South Dakota Democrat who lost a landslide presidential election to Richard Nixon in 1972, is attending tonight’s Florida Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson dinner.
McGovern, who lives part time in St. Augustine and turns 88 next week, got a standing ovation when he was introduced by U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Monticello.
HOLLYWOOD — U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, is endorsing state Sen. Dave Aronberg in the competitive Democratic primary for attorney general.
Deutch served in the Florida Senate with both Aronberg and his Democratic primary rival, state Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach. Deutch cited Aronberg’s work on consumer issues and called him “a fighter for people who need it. Right now, the citizens of the state of Florida need someone who is going to fight for them.”
Aronberg
In a tight race between two South Florida Democrats with similar stands on issues and a similar lack of statewide name recognition, Aronberg called the Deutch endorsement “a big moment in the campaign.”
Deutch announced the endorsement at the Florida Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner gathering.
The dinner itself is this evening, but the Westin Diplomat hotel has been a Democratic Who’s Who all day with a variety of meetings and receptions that will continue Sunday morning.
U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, has the most available cash to spend of any congressional candidate with $2.9 million, edging a largely self-financed Ohio car dealer and Republican, Tom Ganley, who has $2.7 million. Klein’s Republican challenger, Allen West, ranks fifth in the nation with $2.2 million cash on hand.
West’s $1.4 million raised in the second quarter was the second-highest total for any congressional candidate in the nation, trailing only the $1.7 million taken in by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.
Among Senate candidates, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s $8.2 million in cash on hand is the fourth-highest total in the U.S. California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is tops at $11.3 million. Republican Marco Rubio had the second-best money quarter of any Senate candidate in the nation. His $4.5 million haul was surpassed only by Boxer’s $4.6 million.
JUPITER — Republican Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum is at The Scripps Research Institute this morning, where he’ll roll out an education plan that includes merit pay for teachers, phasing out teacher tenure, expanding “school choice” programs and supporting a constitutional amendment to modify the state’s class-size law.
McCollum breakfasted with a business group in Palm Beach earlier this morning and is scheduled to speak to a GOP club in West Palm Beach around lunchtime.
Down to only $800,000 in his Republican gubernatorial campaign account, Bill McCollum is doing the heavy lifting with his 527 political advocacy fund.
McCollum, who has agreed to limit his personal campaign spending in return for matching funds from taxpayers, he is free to raise unlimited amounts of cash with his group, The Florida First Initiative.
McCollum’s fund took in another $50,000 from Mike Haridopolos, a Merritt Island Republican who is expected to take over the Senate president’s office next year. Haridopolos’s group, the Freedom First Committee, has now invested about $450,000 in McCollum’s bid.
Haridopolos most recently raised $40,000 from Sen. Don Gaetz’s political committee, $50,000 from the Florida Association of Realtors and $30,000 from the Florida Association of Insurance Agents.
McCollum’s political fund has taken in nearly $400,000 in the past week.
It was the third straight quarter in which West out-raised Klein, a two-term incumbent who’s one of the top Democratic moneymen.
Klein still holds an advantage in overall cash on hand, with $2.9 million to West’s $2.2 million. But his lead has shrunk from $1.6 million three months ago to $722,719 now.
Klein defeated West in 2008. For their 2010 rematch, West has capitalized on YouTube popularity and frequent cable TV appearances to raise nearly $3.5 million while Klein has raised about $2.4 million.
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