Bilirakis the senior? Maybe he is retiring. If that's the case, then who's the republican running against the chicken?
Its the son of Bilirakis.
This explains much.
The area has a heavy Greek immigrant, decendant population and the best the (neutered) democrat party could do was to get the chiken man lawyer to attempt to neutralize the ethnic issue.
(never mind the fact that most greek families tend to be conservative and voting for a chicken stripper would not fly. They also take pride is who they send into office, I know many greeks who refused to vote for Dukakis because they thought he would be an embarassment.)