Schroeder steps in

By Jennifer J. Foster

As an update to my Saturday column that pondered the fate of the Journal Register’s two daily newspapers in Connecticut, it now appears that those papers will remain open—for the time being, at least.

The Bristol Press reports that Michael E. Schroeder, a former 15-year employee of Newsday and now owner of Central Connecticut Communications, has entered into a letter of intent to buy the two dailes and three weeklies from JR. The sale should be complete within two weeks.

Before Schroeder’s rescue, The Press and its neighbor, The Herald of New Britain, were set to publish their last editions Jan. 16.

Please note that no government funds are involved in this deal.

Free-for-all in the Sunshine State

By Jennifer J. Foster

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is out as a prospective candidate to replace U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez in 2010.

This is huge news for Florida and the entire nation. Bush was the odds-on favorite not only to run, but to win, the Senate seat. He was a wildly popular governor; he left office with approval ratings still in the 60s. He found success with almost all his major initiatives and managed to steer the state through a year that brought unprecedented disaster through four hurricanes in one season. Given that background, a campaign infrastructure that he’s spent 15 years building and his insurmountable name ID, no Republican would dare challenge him in a primary; in addition, only a handful of Democrats who could even entertain the thought of a serious general election campaign against him.

This is why Republican politicians have held their ambitious fire since Martinez announced last month that he would not run for a second term. Now that Bush has decided to stay on the sidelines, though, the preening will kick into high gear—immediately.

Chris Cillizza observes in The Washington Post that the Republican Party of Florida will convene its annual meeting this weekend in Orlando. “Every insider in the Florida Republican Party will be in attendance,“ Cillizza writes; you can bet that there will be an informal straw poll going on among those insiders.

So if Jeb’s out, who’s in? It’s a question of paramount importance, given Florida’s high profile and and efforts of the Republican Party to right itself after a disastrous 2008 election cycle. The winner of the U.S. Senate primary in Florida in 2010 will carry the party’s banner in what promises to be one of the most high-profile races of the year.

Cillizza says early buzz focuses on U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, state Attorney General Bill McCollum, former state House Speaker Marco Rubio and state Senate President Jeff Atwater.

Buchanan is a self-made millionaire who would enter the race with almost-unlimited resources. He is also a former chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, so his contacts in the state—and throughout the country—run deep. He was elected to Congress in 2006 after a contentious campaign that drew loads of money from national parties; in addition, Buchanan spent several million dollars of his personal money to ensure victory. The race was highly partisan, and he was painted as a conservative extremist by his opponents. But since going to Washington, he’s staked out a moderate course, voting against congressional bailouts—including the Big Three bailout, which would have helped his own car dealership business—while supporting increases in the minimum wage, among other issues. His work won him the re-election endorsement of his hometown paper, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which had opposed his candidacy in 2006. Buchanan’s decision whether to pursue the Senate seat will likely turn on his committee assignments in the new congressional term and the candidate field that forms in coming weeks. Resources aren’t the problem for Buchanan; name ID is, so potential opponents might affect his entry into the race more than they would for other prospective candidates.

Mack is the son of former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, a much beloved figure in his own right. There would be plenty of talk about the son following the father, etc. But the younger Mack has struggled to develop the statesmanlike reputation that his father had. In addition, since taking U.S. Rep. Mary Bono Mack as his wife, Mack has faced questions about his residency; Bono represents a district in California.

There’s this much about a potential McCollum bid: It wouldn’t be uncharted territory for him. He’s previously run for the Senate twice, once in 2000 and again (incidentally, against Martinez in the GOP primary) in 2004. But since he’s Attorney General Bill McCollum and not U.S. Sen. Bill McCollum, you know those campaigns didn’t turn out well for him. It’s unlikely that the RPOF and the National Republican Senatorial Committee would look kindly on a third McCollum attempt. They need a win, and he hasn’t delivered in either of two previous tries.

Then you have former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio (more here). Rubio is, by all accounts, a politician whose star is on the rise in the Sunshine State. He was the first Hispanic Speaker of the House in 2006, and he is the youngest speaker in modern Florida history. He’s from Miami, which is a Republican stronghold, and he’s bright, articulate and charismatic. But as speaker, Rubio hitched his star to a tax overhaul plan that he tried but failed over two years to enact. It’s unclear what Rubio would market as his main accomplishment in a race for the U.S. Senate. He has two other problems, too: House speakers usually have name IDs in the single digits, and that drops after they leave the post. Like other state legislative leaders across the country, they’re kings in their capitals, but anonymous around their states. Also, it’s hard to raise any money when you’re no longer in a position of influence. Rubio would likely run strong in the Miami area, but he’d have plenty of problems in the Panhandle and across northern Florida.

That brings us to current Florida State Senate President Jeff Atwater. Atwater is presiding right now over a special session of the Florida Senate in which that chamber will be a part of cutting $1 billion from the state’s budget—and this is before the regular session of the Legislature, which kicks off in March. Atwater would be running for the Senate on the heels of his Senate presidency. And while that might help fundraising in the short term, it’s likely to cripple his candidacy in the long run; for all his efforts and good intentions, Atwater’s name will likely be mud among editorial boards at the end of his two-year term, because it’s hard to develop a good rapport with voters when you’re cutting things like unemployment benefits and Medicaid. But that’s just what the Legislature is going to have to do to balance the budget during these rough economic times. Atwater is going to try to walk a fine line between being willing to raise taxes—the bane of conservatives everywhere—and alienating those same conservatives whom he might approach for their votes later. It’s going to be a painful two years in Florida, and Atwater’s name is going to be all over it.

The name of Florida’s current governor is also being bantered about in this discussion. Charlie Crist (a/k/a “The People’s Governor”) is familiar to cable television watchers as the silver-headed dude who was always over John McCain’s shoulder during McCain’s visits to the Sunshine State this year. Because of his crossover appeal and reputation as a moderate, Crist was mentioned as a potential VP candidate for McCain. But Crist would have to forego a shot at a second term as governor to run for the U.S. Senate in 2010. I don’t see that as likely, given that Charlie Crist’s entire career has been about winning the governor’s mansion, which he finally did in 2006.

One name I’m surprised hasn’t gotten more attention is that of former House Speaker Allan Bense (more here). Bense’s stock was in orbit at the end of his term as speaker in 2006, but he opted not to run for the Senate against U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. That led to the ill-fated campaign of U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, whose performance in the general election that year was nothing short of disastrous. (Even the beginning was terrible. On the day she announced her candidacy, Harris gave an infamous interview to Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes that was so incredible that it became instant fodder for parodies all over the country. I have searched the internet for it, alas, in vain, but you can see just a smidge of it at 1:33 in this clip from “The Daily Show.“ Watch for her standing at an angle to the camera while she’s talking to Colmes.) Anyway, Bense cited a desire to stay close to home and family in bypassing the Senate race that year. One has to wonder whether he’d be interested now. If he was, his candidacy would likely be welcomed by the RPOF and the NRCC; he’s a terrific candidate who has built good relationships and a strong reputation on both sides of the aisle. And he’s from the Panhandle, so he could shore up support among right-leaning Democrats in that area of the state.

One potential candidate to watch on the Democratic side is Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink. Sink has also developed a stellar reputation on both sides of the aisle, and she’s from the I-4 corridor. She’s married to former gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride, who was routed by Bush in a race that was basically nothing more than a showdown between the teacher’s union and the governor in 2002. It has been assumed that Sink would be Crist’s foremost opponent in his bid for re-election in 2010, and Sink has done nothing to tamp down that speculation. But she would also be an attractive senatorial candidate for Democrats, who would welcome the chance to run a woman against whichever just-another-white-guy-Republican faced off against her in that race.

(Incidentally, when Bill Richardson withdrew from consideration to be President-elect Barack Obama’s Secretary of Commerce, it occurred to me that Sink would be a terrific replacement choice for Obama. Her reputation is impeccable, and Senate Republicans would find little with which to quibble in her record.)

So that’s the lowdown on the showdown that’s becoming the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Florida. Remember that I used to live there, and I worked in the Florida House of Representatives for a few years before moving up here. I have worked with most of the folks I’ve mentioned here. In the interest of full disclosure, it is important that I tell you that I used to live in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, which Harris represented when I lived there. I have also worked closely with Buchanan.

This is going to be a marquee matchup—along with the gubernatorial races in New York and California, probably one of the top three contests—that political watchers will be salivating over for the next two years. It’s central to Republicans’ desperate efforts to avoid losing any more seats in the Senate: One more loss would bring Democrats to that magic, filibuster-proof 60, so Republicans can’t afford a dud in the Sunshine State.