Today’s primaries range from dogs that didn’t bark—AZ GOP Senate and gubernatorial primaries that turned into snoozers—to noisy kennels of nastiness in Florida.
Florida
Florida’s Democratic Senate and Republican gubernatorial primaries were originally supposed to be snoozers, with Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) expected to win the former and Attorney General (and former congressman) Bill McCollum (R) expected to win the latter without a whole lot of trouble. Then, near the end of the qualifying period, billionaire investor Jeff Greene jumped into the Democratic Senate primary while multi-millionaire (his net worth is estimated at $218 million) former hospital exec and anti-health-reform lobbyist Rick Scott (R) jumped into the gubernatorial primary. Nothing’s been the same since then.
In a remarkably short period of time, Scott has shattered every Florida political spending record, pouring $39 million of personal money and another $11 million of his wife’s money (channeled through an “independent” 527 group that’s been attacking McCollum) into the race. From the get-go, he identified himself as a Tea Party-friendly “outsider” taking on the corrupt status quo in Tallahassee, as symbolized by McCollum, who spent twenty years in Congress and lost two Senate races before becoming AG.
For a while, it looked like McCollum was toast, but he fought back with his own nasty-grams calling attention to the $1.7 billion fines for Medicare fraud paid out by the HCA-Columbia hospital chain for billings during Scott’s tenure as CEO. The party stalwart has been helped by endorsements from Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, not to mention a 527 group of his own that collected about $9 million from every conservative interest group in the state.
Several late polls have shown McCollum pulling ahead of Scott, even as both candidates’ rising negatives have enabled Democrat Alex Sink to pull ahead of both of them in a hypothetical three-way November race with independent Bud Chiles.
Meanwhile, a similar but even more dramatic dynamic has occurred in the Democratic Senate race. Greene (whose original strategist was none other than Joe Trippi, who left the campaign just a few weeks ago, to be replaced by another famous name, Tad Devine) sprinted into a quick lead over Meek after heavy advertising identifying himself as a can-do businessman “outsider.” But then details about how Greene got rich betting on a housing market collapse, and more luridly, about Greene’s alleged playboy antics, sometimes in the company of BFF Mike Tyson, started to come out, and Meek has retaken the lead rather decisively.
Greene fought back with attacks on Meek and his mother, former congresswoman Carrie Meek, for alleged corruption, and on Meek for supposedly not being sufficiently supportive of Israel, but other than contributing to the already low tone of the primary season, they haven’t had a major impact. Buttressed by endorsements from both President Obama and former president Bill Clinton, Meek has opened up sizable leads in all the late polls, and if this holds, he can move on to worrying about how to keep Democrats from supporting independent candidate Charlie Crist.
Vermont
There’s a different political atmosphere up in Vermont, where Democrats are holding a highly competitive but very civil five-way primary to choose a candidate for governor. The two early favorites were Secretary of State Deb Markowitz (a long-time self-identified New Democrat) and former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine (a favorite of unions and liberal activists), but once incumbent Republican governor Jim Douglas announced his retirement, other strong candidacies appeared, including state senator Peter Shulman, credited with a key role in passage of Vermont’s gay marriage statute; former state senator Matt Dunne, who’s run the national VISTA program and also served as a Google exec; and state senator Susan Bartlett, who’s challenging Markowitz for the votes of centrists.
Though there’s been no public polling in the race, it looks like a dead heat among Markowitz, Shulman, Racine and Dunne, with turnout (expected to be quite low thanks to the vacation season timing) a crucial factor. The winner will face Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie (R), who has no primary opposition, and who has positioned himself somewhat to the right of the incumbent Douglas. Vermont represents a prime “takeback” state for Democrats, though Dubie led all the Democrats in a June Rasmussen poll.
Arizona
Over in Arizona, John McCain’s pulled far in front of once-feared challenger J.D. Hayworth, thanks to a combination of heavy spending, shifts to the right on policy issues, and Hayworth gaffes. Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, once considered a caretaker sure to lose a primary, has been turned into a national conservative celebrity by her signature on the state’s new immigration law, and will win easily.
Alaska
Up in Alaska, Sarah Palin’s risked her home-state reputation with a late effort on behalf of former judge Joe Miller, who is challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski. There’s no love lost between Palin and Murkowski, whose father Palin defeated in a primary to become governor in 2006. But Murkowski has a huge financial advantage, and despite occasional ideological heresies, should win.
Oklahoma
And down in Oklahoma, a low-turnout runoff will decide two Republican congressional nominations, including the challenge to Blue Dog Democrat Dan Boren, who has tons of money but is theoretically vulnerable in a conservative district.
