Florida Republicans Fear an Uphill Election Battle

Despite the fact that they are led by an extremely popular governor, hold a strong legislative majority and have a friend in the White House, there is little joy among Florida Republicans heading into this fall’s midterm elections.

With Republican candidates nationwide campaigning under the burden of slumping support for President Bush and the Iraq war, some here concede they have an uphill fight to retain the political high-water mark they’ve enjoyed for almost a decade.

The party couldn’t find challengers to go up against four incumbent House Democrats, leaving Reps. Allen Boyd, Corrine Brown, Robert Wexler and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to run unopposed in November.

And the Republican Party of Florida’s failed attempt to drive one of its own -- Rep. Katherine Harris -- out of the race for Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson’s seat left the woman made famous by her role in the 2000 presidential recount likely to win the primary but wounded for the contest against the incumbent.

Three little-known candidates filed by Friday’s deadline to challenge Harris for the Republican nomination -- lawyer William McBride, developer Peter Monroe and retired Navy officer LeRoy Collins Jr., the son of a 1950s-era governor. They are expected to split the anti-Harris vote.

Gov. Jeb Bush’s preferred contender, state Speaker of the House Allan G. Bense, announced Wednesday that he didn’t have the energy for the costly and no-doubt bruising run.

Before Bense made his decision, Bush had undercut Harris with the widely publicized observation that “I just don’t believe she can win.”

Flush with what may have been a Pyrrhic victory, Harris on Thursday brushed off the “less than laudatory comments from the Beltway boys” as the mutterings of entrenched politicians upset because she had made clear that she “won’t walk in lock step with them” for purely partisan reasons.

At state Democratic Party headquarters, the internal GOP strife was lifting spirits.

“This is our best opportunity to pick up seats since 1984,” said Luis Navarro, executive director of Florida’s Democratic Party.

He pointed to four Republican-held U.S. House seats that his party had a shot at winning. Florida Democrats could help the party take back control of the House, where Republicans hold 231 of 435 seats.

In any off-year election, Navarro said, the party in power has difficulty getting voters to turn out.

And this year could be even more difficult for the GOP because of the low approval ratings dogging President Bush, the governor’s brother.

“In all published polls, we see a direct correlation between the president’s decline and the Democrats’ competitiveness,” Navarro said.

Harris, Florida’s former secretary of state who caught the nation’s attention when she certified the 2000 presidential results to give Bush a slim and controversial victory over Democrat Al Gore, threatens to polarize voters and inspire a strong independent turnout.

“The real fear [among Republicans] is that Katherine Harris brings everyone else down,” said Mark Bubriski, communications director for the state Democratic Party.

Democrats also believe that the national Republican Party’s support for opening the Gulf Coast to oil and gas drilling could hurt GOP candidates in this tourism-dependent state.

The national immigration reform debate also presents a problem for Republicans in Florida, where agriculture and the hospitality industry employ hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant workers.

State Republican Party communications chief Jeff Sadosky has tried to put a positive spin on what political analysts consider an embarrassment for Gov. Bush -- the failed move against Harris -- contending GOP candidates will benefit from the legacy of a governor departing on a high note.

“His approval ratings are in the 60s. He’s wildly popular,” Sadosky said of the governor, whom he expects to campaign for Republican candidates this fall.

Quoting the late Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Sadosky argued that “all politics is local” and that GOP candidates can point to tangible gains in the economy and education achieved during a decade-long majority Republican watch.

Although the party believes it will make further gains in the Legislature, Sadosky conceded, “On the federal level, I don’t know.”

As for Harris, Sadosky said: “This is an opportunity for her to take the advice the governor gave her a month and a half ago and make the campaign about Bill Nelson’s record, not about her.... If it continues to be about Katherine Harris, as it has been so far ... that’s going to be a tough one to win.”

In an interview, Harris said she planned to take on Nelson for being “completely out of step with mainstream Floridians.”

She also said she disagreed with the state GOP’s analysis of her chances.

“All the polling I’ve seen suggests that if we just turn out our base, we’ll win,” Harris said. “And I ignite our base.”

That incendiary potential is what worries Republican strategists, who fear her conservative positions -- and the taint from an illegal contributions scandal -- could discourage party moderates from voting.

A planned handgun training session to requalify Harris for the concealed weapons permit she obtained amid death threats after the 2000 election controversy spurred articles in Florida newspapers about her role in the recount.

By inviting photographers to today’s Tampa-area training, she appeared to be spurning the party’s advice to run on her contrasts with Nelson and not on her reputation.