Tallahassee lobbyist and longtime campaign adviser John Mac Stipanovich dismisses those underfunded candidates who emerge and promise a mostly grass-roots campaign, built on glad-handing Florida voters.
Stipanovich is a campaign realist who served as chief of staff to ex-Gov. Bob Martinez and adviser to such political stars as Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris and Charlie Crist. He evokes a simple standard for statewide candidates:
The barbecue rule.
You cant eat enough barbecue anymore to win in Florida, Stipanovich said, acknowledging that a heavy media campaign is needed to loft more traditional barnstorming at clubs and county events.
But Stipanovich said Florida is witnessing something completely different this year the reverse of his barbecue corollary. With candidate qualifying having ended at noon Friday, statewide campaigns face kickoff with a question:
Can you buy enough TV to win in Florida?
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott has emerged as a front-runner in polls after spending $15 million from his own pocket on television ads. Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Jeff Greene says hes ready to spend $40 million of his own money on that campaign, much of it on TV.
Its going to be all TV all the time, Stipanovich said. Well find out if that pays off.
Stipanovich, who supports Republican Bill McCollum over Scott, has seen polls showing his candidate withering under the glare of his rivals TV campaign. Similarly, Greenes brief but costly campaign has brought him to only a whisper behind U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek in the race for the Democratic Senate nomination.
While campaigning for a year, Meek has so far shunned television advertising. McCollum, also, has run only a modest air campaign, helped by ads supporting him paid for by shadowy political committees called the Florida First Initiative and the Alliance for Americas Future.
But the dearth of TV is leaving McCollum with political numbers against Scott that are analogous to those the latest Nature episode gets against American Idol.
When you put together a huge TV campaign by outsiders with this anti-incumbency mood thats sweeping the nation, youve got a real witches brew, said Lance deHaven Smith, a Florida State University political scientist.
Smith has studied Florida politics for decades and says the power of television will drive this years contests more than ever.
Its also a coming of political age for Florida an 18.5 million population, a 10-media market megastate that now appears ready to join California and New York among those where a robust personal checkbook may be more important than a savvy campaign team and captivating message.
An Aug. 24 primary election date also virtually assures an extremely low-turnout race. History suggests that less than 25 percent of voters may actually schlep to the polls so voter awareness of the candidates could be largely shaped by what they watch on TV, analysts said.
This is the test, this year, Smith said. I still think there is a grass-roots in Florida, just like there are big special interests and big labor that shape elections. But if you can win on a campaign with media only, well, the millionaires will win.
The sources for the cash Scott and Greene bring to their campaigns may ultimately be their demise, analysts said. Scott, a former CEO with the Columbia/HCA hospital chain, left the company in 1997 shortly before it paid $1.7 billion in fines and civil settlements with the federal government in what investigators called the biggest health care fraud in the nations history.
Scott has tried to push back against these charges in a TV spot in which he generally accepts responsibility for company missteps but also blames McCollum for trying to link him to wrongdoing he never did.
Greene made his billions by trading sub-prime mortgage-backed bonds just as the nations housing market tanked. With Floridas home foreclosure rate among the highest in the nation and state unemployment hovering near 12 percent driven largely by the housing collapse Greene may be challenged to present himself as an empathetic, self-made entrepreneur.
Big TV money isnt new to Florida politics although the price tag mounts with each election cycle. And self-funders have been seen before Miami businessman Doug Gallagher spent $6 million of his own money to draw less than 14 percent of the Republican U.S. Senate primary vote in 2004.
But this year, TV spending by self-funders is soaring to levels never seen in Florida.
While McCollum has fallen from front-runner to endangered status, he says he still holds a potential, not-so-secret weapon: More TV.
We havent spent our main campaign money yet. We will, McCollum said. Voters will get an opportunity to see what this campaign is about. Well pull the mask back on Rick Scott. But they also need to know me. We havent run our ads yet.
