Tuesday, August 17, 2004

New television ads from Democratic Senate candidates Over the weekend, a few new ads hit the airwaves and the Internet from Democratic candidates for Florida's U.S. Senate seat.  Democratic Senate hopefuls running new ads (Palm Beach Post) On Friday, I posted about Peter Deutsch's.  Here are the others... Alex Penelas' ad contains his pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq.  What I find interesting about the ad is that the lead sentence is "The most difficult challenge facing our nation is Iraq.", but the closest thing to a productive statement that the ad has on the matter is " I will fight to bring our troops home".    It's not clear to me how that helps face the challenge. "Iraq tv ad"  Alex Penelas for Senate Penelas tv ad text ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Betty Castor's new ads are airing in  Jacksonville, Tampa, Tallahassee, and Gainesville.  They tout her health care agenda. The center-piece of both ads is the "Healthy Kids" insurance program developed on her watch as Education Commissioner.  The program was the brain-child of a University of Florida professor who convinced Castor and (Republican) Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher to refine it.  It was signed into law by (Republican) Governor Martinez in 1990. "Proven"  Real Player  QuickTime  Windows Media Player  (Betty Castor for Senate) "Proven" text "Children" Real Player  QuickTime  Windows Media Player  (Betty Castor for Senate) "Chidren" text Florida Senate Campaign, Politics comment []5:11:27 PM   trackback []

Senate Campaign News 20040817 Charley continues to be the news leader and his shadow persists over the August 31 election. Besides the obvious impact areas, he's also affected life further away from the coast.  Due to power outages, schools in Orange (Orlando),Osceola (Kissimmee) , and Polk (Lakeland/Winter Haven) counties are closed for the week.  Schools in Volusia  County (Daytona) are closed until at least Wednesday.  As far as the election goes, there is a bit of a split in newspaper reporting.  The Tallahassee Democrat is leaning with an optimistic view that the elections will happen in affected counties on August 31.   The St Petersburg Times and (Sarasota) Herald-Tribune are less sure.  Complications include power outages, not knowing whether some polling places still stand.  In Hardee County, the elections supervisor died of a heart attack that was blamed on the storm (Tampa Trib).  The consensus seems to be that delays in counties would not affect the date of the primary for the rest of the state. Orange closes school for week (Orlando Sentinel) Affected precincts still plan to vote (Tallahassee Democrat) Late voting possible in some counties (St Petersburg Times) Damage to polling places could affect election (Herald-Tribune) Hurricane may stir debate on vote date (Tampa Tribune) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Senate campaign news, Doug Gallagher increased his stake in the race to nearly five million dollars by contributing over a million dollars on Monday.  He's triggered the 'millionaire's clause' in the McCain-Feingold act that increases the maximum contributions from an individual that his opponents can receive.  It would seem that Mel Martinez would be best positioned to avail himself of the clause (personal opinion and not one that's reported).  It appears that the bulk of the money will be used on television ads. Senate candidate ups ante for Republicans  (St Petersburg Times) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Retired Senator Connie Mack joined Bill McCollum on the campaign trail by attending a fundraiser and visiting Duval County (Jacksonville) Republican headquarters.  Recall that it was Mack's seat that McCollum was trying to keep Republican in 2000. Ex-U.S. Sen. Connie Mack joins McCollum on campaign trail (Palm Beach Post) Florida Senate Campaign, Politics comment []12:50:04 PM   trackback []