McCollum, Mack and Meek top early Senate poll By KEITH LAING 1/21/2009 THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA Enhanced resources for this story are available at: www.newsserviceflorida.com THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, Jan. 21, 2009..........An early snap shot of the possible Democratic and Republican fields for the Florida U.S. Senate seat that will open up in 2010 staked Attorney General Bill McCollum and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek to slim, early leads. On the Democratic side, only Meek has declared a candidacy, but Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University's polling institute surveyed 1,370 registered voters about his chances against U.S. Reps. Allen Boyd and Ron Klein, state Sen. Dan Gelber and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, who last week declined to run. Sink was ahead with 15 percent in the poll, which began two days before she withdrew from the race on Jan. 16, but Meek ran just behind her at 13 percent. The poll, which was conducted from Jan. 14 to Jan. 19, showed Klein, Boyd and Gelber pulling in 9 percent, 8 percent and 1 percent respectively. However, a majority of the poll's 422 Democrats - 54 percent - said they did not know who they would support. None of the Republicans mentioned in the poll have declared candidacies, though several said after former Gov. Jeb Bush passed on the race that they were thinking about it. Still, McCollum holds a slight lead at the outset of the potentially congested Republican primary, drawing 22 percent to U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV's 21 percent. The remainder of the GOP poll found U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan at 10 percent and former House Speakers Marco Rubio and Allan Bense at 6 percent and 2 percent respectively. Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University polling institute, said McCollum and Mack likely benefited from name recognition. McCollum is a former congressman who played a high-profile role in the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton and he has run for U.S. Senate before, in addition to a statewide race for attorney general. Mack is the son of a popular former senator. The name is also familiar to older voters because the former senator's grandfather, Connie Mack, was a Hall of Fame baseball manager. "We went out of our way, because we thought it was important, to make sure voters understood this isn't the former senator, this is the former senator's son," Brown said. "Having said that, Mack's numbers are very good. Is it because even though we told them he's not the former senator's son, people think he is? Perhaps. But perhaps it is that being associated with the former senator is a real political asset. That's more likely, given that the rest of the potential candidates are pretty well known." Brown added that McCollum is benefiting from his current job as attorney general, which 51 percent of the poll's respondents thought he was handling well. "McCollum is obviously in quite good shape," Brown said. "People know him and they tend to like him. Clearly he's benefiting from the fact that he's run statewide before." Brown added that McCollum appeared to be unaffected by his role in the 1998 Clinton impeachment trail, which he managed. The impeachment became increasingly unpopular as it played out. But Brown said voters' memories are not that long. "If you and I were to go take a walk in any shopping mall in Florida and ask 10 people about Bill McCollum, zero would remember that," Brown said. "It was too long ago. It's another era." However, voters could be reminded of the controversy by Democrats, who are facing a contested primary of their own. On that side of the aisle, Brown said the early poll results boded well for Meek, who bested all potential candidates surveyed except Sink, who removed herself from consideration before the survey was concluded. Sink was being courted for the race by national Democrats who believed she would be the party's best shot to reclaim the open Senate seat, but she only topped Meek 15 percent to 13 percent. Brown said there were encouraging signs for Meek in the poll, as well as the other congressmen sampled, but there were warning signs as well. "His numbers are pretty good, but he's widely unknown," Brown said. "All the congressmen are pretty well-known (locally), but the task for each of them is to get known outside their districts." While the Quinnipiac poll largely contained good news for McCollum, Mack and Meek, it did not do any favors for former House Speaker Marco Rubio, who has been touted by some Republican operatives as a possible strong candidate because of his youth, charisma, Cuban heritage and Miami geographic base. Rubio has reportedly met with the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is said to have its sights on Gov. Charlie Crist as the party searches for a new big-name recruit after former Gov. Jeb Bush declined to run. The former speaker also maintains a campaign-style website, though his Internet presence does not specify a particular office he is seeking. However, Rubio placed fourth in the poll, falling behind McCollum, Mack and former House Speaker Allan Bense at 6 percent. Rubio drew a 13 percent favorable rating and 17 percent unfavorable number, with 69 percent of respondents saying they did not know him well enough to offer an opinion. "He's not that well-known and more people don't like him than like him," Brown said. "That's a warning sign." Former state Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller, who served in the Senate from 2000 until being term-limited in 2008, agreed. Geller said that generally viable candidates have at least a 2.5 to 1 favorability to unfavorability ratio. With so many possible contenders that are not yet known statewide, that ratio is more important than head-to-head match-ups in early polls, he added. "What's probably more important than who people would vote for today is, Do the people that know (a candidate) like them?" Geller said. However, Geller also said that the poll revealed a geographic flaw in the early Democratic field. "You have all these South Florida candidates...and nobody in the running between the Panhandle and Palm Beach," Geller said. "I would not be surprised if somebody in the vast middle of the state decided to get in. I would not be surprised if a Democrat from the I-4 corridor looked at this poll and said there's a glaring weakness in the field and there's no frontrunner." But Geller said that all the possible candidates on both sides have plenty of time to increase their name recognition. "At the end of the day, once we have a Democratic candidate and a Republican candidate, the numbers today are meaningless," Geller said. "A lot of people who have never heard of the Democratic nominee will vote for the Democratic nominee simply because they are the Democratic nominee. The same is true of the Republican side." Detailed context on the 2010 Senate election is available on the NSF U.S. Senate race Backgrounder at http://75.150.27.130/ticker/senaterace/senaterace.htm. Illuminating the Sunshine State http://www.newsserviceflorida.com