With U.S. Rep. Connie Mack preparing to enter the Republican primary field looking to challenge Democrat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012, fellow Senate hopefuls unleashed attacks on the newcomer to the race.
The team behind former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, who is running in the Republican primary, used Halloween to attack Nelson, Mack and former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, who is also running in the Republican primary.
There may be a lot of ghosts, goblins and monsters running around your neighborhood today, but you know what's really scary? asked the Hasner team in an email sent out on Monday. Six more years of career Washington politicians. George LeMieux, Connie Mack and Bill Nelson are the only people in America who believe that sending Washington politicians back to Washington will help solve the problems they created.
When you look behind the masks, all three of them are part of the earmarking, big-spending, no-accountability culture in Washington that has created record debt, economic uncertainty, and the real threat of a diminished future, the Hasner camp continued. Combined, they have requested and voted for billions and billions of dollars of wasteful earmark spending in Washington. That's a real horror story. We can't expect the people who helped create the problems in Washington to solve them.
LeMieuxs team, also looking to compare Nelson and Mack, launching a Web video Monday.
This video brings to light the fiscally irresponsible voting records of Senator Bill Nelson and Congressman Connie Mack, said Anna Nix, a spokesman for LeMieux. Career politicians like Nelson and Mack are the reason our country is suffocating under a mound of tremendous debt. To get America back on the right track, we need people like George LeMieux, who refused to raise the debt ceiling, never requested wasteful earmarks, and has a real plan to get Americans back to work.
Also on Monday, another Republican Senate hopeful -- restaurant executive Craig Miller -- highlighted his record in the private sector on Monday and contrasted that with Nelsons record.
I have spent the last few months traveling this state, and as I talk to Floridians one issue continues to come up: jobs, Miller wrote in an email sent out to supporters on Monday. Despite what some people would have you believe, the American people dont want handouts, they want jobs. Contrary to what Bill Nelson might have you believe -- government does not create jobs, the free market does.
As a job creator, I have been dealing with government regulations most of my adult life, and I can tell you that many of them do nothing to protect people; many of them simply slow down the growth of any business, added Miller. This has gone on too long, and the current economic crisis is a direct result of an overreaching government.
Miller, the former CEO of Ruths Chris, hammered Nelson for his many years in politics.
Far too many of our leaders have been in the bubble of Washington, D.C., for far too long, and Bill Nelson is at the top of the list, Miller continued. "Forty years is enough of Bill Nelson."
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or (850) 727-0859.
