It's going to be a long, long election season
By DAVID SEDORE, Palm Beach Business.com Staff
DELRAY BEACH — If you thought we’d have a longer respite from television electioneering, you’d be wrong. After all, there are only 16 months or so until the next election.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
better known as AFSCME, is running TV ads for 10 freshmen congressmen, including Tim Mahoney, the Democrat from Florida’s 16th Congressional District. Mahoney, if you recall, defeated Republican Joe Negron for the seat Mark Foley formerly occupied. The ads are essentially the same, praising each candidate for their support for increasing the minimum wage, health benefits for veterans and reforming congressional ethics rules.
AFSCME says it is spending more than $500,000 to run the ads on behalf of all 10 representatives. All 10, by the way, are Democrats.
“Americans voted for change last November, and that is exactly what these legislators are bringing to the nation,” said AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee. “This new Congress is fighting to make a real difference that is beginning to produce results in the lives of working Americans and their families.”
Mahoney faces a tough fight for reelection. The Rothenberg Report and Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball call it a pure toss-up, citing the tight margin by which Mahoney won and the quality of the Republicans vying for right to run against him. Republicans also have the edge in registered voters.
If you haven’t seen it, you can find the AFSCME ad here.
Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Wexler, the Democrat from Boca Raton, is sending out mailings seeking financial support for his re-election bid. Wexler faces a challenge from fellow Democrat and former Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber.
How significant a challenge is difficult to determine, since Graber has yet to file financial reports with the Federal Election Commission.
Wexler’s mailer, however, calls it “my most difficult re-election campaign ever,” and says his “opponent . . . has pledged to spend $1 million to defeat me and has already begun using his considerable personal resources to air ads on network television.”
Wexler’s district, the 19th, is heavily Democratic. He has served in the 
House since winning election in 1996 — he defeated Graber in the primary that year — and was unopposed in 2006.
Graber, seen in the photo at the right, is a Coral Springs gynecologist, who served four terms in the Florida House beginning in 1988..
Larry Sabato puts another Florida freshman on the endangered list — Republican Vern Buchanan, who represents the 13th district on the West Coast. Buchanan defeated Christine Jennings by less than 400 votes in an election that is being examined by the House Committee on Administration. You might recall there were something like 18,000 ballots in Sarasota County where no votes were cast for any candidate in the House race, causing some to suspect that the voting machines used in the election malfunctioned.
Jennings won the county by about 6 percent, making it likely she would have won the election if those 18,000 ballots
Sabato gives Buchanan slightly better odds on holding onto his job for two more years. He ranks the race as leaning Republican, given the GOP's edge in registration.
"The district leans Republican, but Buchanan's slim margin of victory (if it was a victory at all) cannot be ignored," Sabato writes.
Sabato says Jennings faces the potential of coming across to voters as a sore loser if she challenges Buchanan as she likely will.
David Sedore is editor of Palm Beach Business.com. He can be reached at 561-450-8258, or by email at editor@pbbusiness.com.
