Jeb won Florida
W won Florida against IMO massive fraud
Martinez won the Senate
Harris won the House, probably would have beat Matinez and already be in the Senate.
We can win with the best, why be too smart by half. Let the voters chose, not Rove. I smell machine politics being attempted in Florida, and it's going to backfire. We may win with another candidate, but it won't be nearly as sweet.
"You're basing your arguments on early manipulated polls and speculation."
These polls are anything but early. She didn't just jump into the race yesterday. I will grant you that most of your polls are slanted to the Democrats, but the same polls taken putting Harris up against Nelson showed her trailing by a nearly incredible 25% (mind you, there's no way in hell ANY Republican would lose by that wide a margin -- but it is fair to say she will lose by what I estimate to be 10%, about what Bob Graham defeated troubled incumbent Paula Hawkins by in 1986) and simultaneously showed Jeb Bush beating Nelson by around 10%. That has GOT to be a warning sign, and to ignore it is absolutely perilous for us.
"Check these polls. Jeb won Florida"
When he ran for the open Governorship. He lost to the sitting incumbent (due to voter deception by Lawton Chiles's sleaze machine) in '94. Remember, this is NOT an open Senate seat. Dislodging incumbents is ALWAYS hard.
"W won Florida against IMO massive fraud"
But again, an open situation. He wasn't running against an incumbent.
"Martinez won the Senate"
And barely, at that, after an ugly primary battle. But again, he wasn't running against an incumbent. If Graham had run for a 4th term, Martinez probably would've lost.
"Harris won the House, probably would have beat Matinez and already be in the Senate."
Harris outspent her Democrat opponent for a SAFE Republican seat by a 10-to-1 margin (nearly $3.5 million dollars vs $350k) and won by a paltry 10% (the figure should've been closer to 20% or more -- her predecessor Dan Miller would routinely win by nearly 2 to 1). As Barone noted, she only held the very base of Republican voters while virtually all the Independents and Democrats went for her opponent, a Clintonista. If her performance ran identical to that in '04, I believe she would've lost the Senate race by at least 5%, perhaps even higher. Oddly enough, as the years pass, her appeal seems to lessen amongst even GOP voters statewide in FL. We can't afford to tie ourselves to a candidate that is having as much trouble as she appears to be now, and remains that far behind in fundraising. She's not making the case to remove the non-threatening but unimpressive Nelson (in fact, his low-key style has probably benefitted him greatly, at least it clearly is against Harris).
"We can win with the best, why be too smart by half. Let the voters chose, not Rove. I smell machine politics being attempted in Florida, and it's going to backfire. We may win with another candidate, but it won't be nearly as sweet."
I'd love to see Harris do a "In your FACE !" at the 'Rat slime machine, but it's not going to happen now, unfortunately. I've had my own problems with Rove and some of his boneheaded moves, especially butting into my own state's politics and annointing the old RINO Lamar! Alexander to our Senate seat when we had the excellent Ed Bryant all but warm and ready to hold the seat for us. If Rove really wanted to do us a favor at this point, he'd have the President have a little talk with kid brother and get his ASS into this Senate contest tout de suite.
Mel Martinez won the Senate because we worked our tails off in a couple of counties in Northeast Florida. We had to convince our voters to accept him on the basis the President had chosen him to run.
Mel Martinez barely squeaked by Betty Castor and he won the state with the 5,000 votes we mustered for him up in our very Republican area of Northeast Florida.
Had it not been for Duval, Clay and St. Johns' Counties, Betty Castor, Democrat, would be one of Florida's two current Senators.