Foley, Hastings eye Senate seat

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings and Mark Foley don't have much in common ideologically.

Foley's support of the president's agenda is almost unwavering, while Hastings has been very critical of a number of Bush initiatives.

But on one issue, their agenda is almost indistinguishable: both are taking a good hard look at the U.S. Senate seat Bob Graham might leave open in 2004.

Hastings, D-Miramar, said he will "give active consideration" to running if Graham decides to run for president.

Foley, R-West Palm Beach, is saying he's "moving closer" to a decision, and the response to his recent visits around the state during the past several weeks has been "very encouraging."

The state's senior senator was expected to announce Feb. 3 in Tallahassee his intentions to seek the presidency. But aortic valve replacement surgery led Graham to delay his decision, causing a bit of a bottleneck for the rest of the potential field in Florida.

All signs point to Graham, D-Miami Lakes, seeking his party's nomination for president, especially after his associates said recently he will file papers with the Federal Election Commission to begin fund-raising efforts in the next few weeks.

"If he decides to go for president, I'm certainly looking at the Senate," Foley said late this week. "If he wants a new job, I do too."

Although Florida law precludes Graham from seeking both positions at once, he has until May 2004 -- well after the initial primaries would indicate whether he has the support needed to continue a presidential bid -- to declare his candidacy for Senate.

His spokesman, Paul Anderson, has said that if Graham decides to pursue the nation's top job, he will concentrate solely on that.

But political analysts doubt that if Graham were unsuccessful in his presidential campaign that he'd simply retire from politics and leave the possibility that a Republican would join Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Tallahassee, in Washington.

"I think he'd be under tremendous pressure from Democrats to hold onto that seat," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "Those two Senate seats are the last big offices they hold in Florida."

Hastings isn't the only Democrat who has expressed interest for the Senate seat if Graham opts to run for president.

Hollywood Rep. Peter Deutsch, Miami Dade-County Mayor Alex Penelas, State Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell of Tamarac, former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner and former state legislator Rick Dantzler all have been mentioned as likely candidates.

But none want to upstage the senior senator by making an announcement before he does, and the state Democratic Party certainly isn't pushing Graham to make a decision. That delay in entering the race and the possibility of Graham returning to the race if he doesn't succeed nationally, could spell trouble for Democrats looking to raise money.

"I'm sensing it more and more that the big donors are sort of waiting till the end," MacManus said. "The cash register isn't going to be opening until it's pretty clear what's going to happen to Graham."

Hastings, who in 1969 was the first black to run for Senate since Reconstruction, said he believes he has the grass-roots support that other candidates lack.

"Different than Foley, although Mark is beginning to move around the state . . . I don't have to think about Umatilla," he said. "I've picked beans and cut greens there in my lifetime."

Hastings thinks his national reputation as a champion of civil rights would help him in a wide-open Democratic primary.

In 1988, the House impeached Hastings, then a federal judge, and the Senate a year later removed him from office after he was accused of accepting a bribe on the bench. A jury had acquitted Hastings of all conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges.

"He's had a few controversies in his past. That will all come up again," said Jennifer Duffy, Senate editor at the Washington-based Cook Political Report. "You can't write him off, but he's got a lot of work to do."

Some experts think Hastings' liberal ideology -- while an asset in a Democratic primary -- could hurt him if he made it to the general election.

"Florida by all accounts is a very moderate state," MacManus said."He is very much more a liberal in terms of spending and in terms of social programs."

What differentiates Foley from the pack now are his war chest and his ubiquity in Florida on the pre-campaign trail. Both are designed to scare off other potential Republican candidates from entering the field, but analysts believe that would be unlikely if Graham decided to run for president.

"Foley at the moment is doing everything right," Duffy said. "I don't know that Foley will be enjoying what he's got for too much longer. An open Senate seat is a rare thing."

Besides Foley, only former Rep. Bill McCollum has been as boisterous about seeking the seat. But some in the party may not want to give him another shot after he lost to Nelson in 2000.

The list of fresh faces that could join the race if Graham announces for president include Reps. Cliff Stearns and Katherine Harris, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez, Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd and Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney, McManus and Duffy have said.

If Graham stays in the Senate race, Foley could get his wish of a relatively thin GOP field, although he could always decide not to run.

"You're always hesitant to run against someone as popular as Bob Graham," Foley said. "I'm not foolhardy. It's daunting; it causes you to pause a little bit."

There are still many intangibles that could affect Graham's standing if he were to run for Senate after a failed presidential campaign.

At 66, his health could start troubling voters. So will any critiques he makes of the Bush administration, especially if the president continues to remain popular. And there's also the idea of the Senate seat being seen as a consolation prize.

Beyond that, his allegiance to the president could hurt him, especially if Bush's popularity sours as his father's did after the Gulf War.

"The White House and Florida politics are intertwined," MacManus said. "Problems on one front could pose problems on the other."

"I don't see anything in Foley's path he can't fix," Duffy said. "Alcee Hastings can't rewrite his past. Mark Foley really doesn't have that problem."

Two thoughts. If Hastings were somehow able to win the nomination, we could chalk this one in the "pick-up" column right away. He's a hard-line member of the Black Congressional Caucus and would have little support outside the African-American community and hard-core liberals in the state. His appeal to moderates and independants would be ZERO. Pete Deutsch would be a much stronger candidate and would probably easily dispatch of Hastings in the primary. Also, Foley supposedly has some skeletons in his closet that could hurt him in both the primary and general election. Besides him and McCollum I don't know of any other announced candidates and I'm not exactly excited about either of those two. So all in all, I'm not letting myself get too excited about Florida just yet. We don't know for sure if the seat will be open yet and I would hope that we could come up with some better candidates on the Republican side than McCollum and Foley.

Hastings is an example of the dangers of both affirmative action and excessive mercy. Hastings was impeached and removed from the bench when the 'Rats controlled both houses of congress. His criminal conviction was subsequently overturned on a technicality. Prior to impeaching Hastings they impeached and removed a corrupt republican judge, Walter Nixon. Because Nixon was an old white guy with no political future they took pity on him and didn't include the penalty option to bar him from holding future offices. When Hastings came up the 'Rats insisted he also be spared that penalty even though it was clearly relevant to him. Hastings one election to the House while the 'Rats still controlled it. They had the power to not seat him, but instead hypocritically set the standard that you can be too bad to be a judge and yet not to bad to be a Democrat congressman.

McCollum will beat every rat easily. There is one exception. If graham stays and runs McCollum will have a tough fight but; he can win. This is because of the large number newly registered Republicans that have come into Florida since the 00 attempted hijacking.

McCollum is not suited to a statewide run, and his dreadful 2000 run demonstrated that. However, if Hastings get the 'Rat nod, then you can start calling him Senator. He can't beat Graham, though, almost no GOPer can (only Jeb or Lt Gov. Brogan could come close).

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