Reply #33: FL: Harris challenger's deep pockets attract speculation [View All]

[rumpel]

St. Petersburg Times

By Times Staff
Published May 21, 2006
Gov. Jeb Bush made it clear that his preferred candidate to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson was House Speaker Allan Bense, who wound up sitting out the race. Now that three little-known Republicans - LeRoy Collins Jr., Peter Monroe and Will McBride - are challenging front-runner Katherine Harris for the GOP nomination, will the governor stay on the sidelines?

We wonder if that question came up Friday night at the Florida Family Policy Council banquet, where the governor was seated next to Stuart Epperson, chairman of Salem Communications, the biggest religious radio broadcaster in America. Epperson's son-in-law is Senate candidate McBride, which has a lot of people wondering if the Orlando lawyer and first-time candidate will pump millions of dollars of family money into the race.

"Everybody's asking that," a chuckling McBride said in his first comments since entering the race. "We're raising the money to be competitive in the primary and more than competitive in the general election. ... I'm looking forward to giving Republicans a viable alternative that can close the gap" with Nelson."

McBride said he was swamped with calls urging him to get in and that he harbors no ill will toward Harris. "It's not about Katherine Harris; it's about finding someone who can be competitive with Bill Nelson."


snip
Since Feb. 26, when the state kicked off an aggressive effort to register voters, more than 19,000 people have signed up in Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough, Hernando and Citrus counties. In all, new Democrats outnumber new Republicans 7,106 to 6,844, but the total number of voters who registered as NPAs, or "no party affiliation," is 5,781, far above the statewide average of about 20 percent.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/05/21/State/Harris_challenger_s_d.shtml