The Associated Press is reporting that Lakeland State Senator Paula Dockery will file the paperwork to declare herself a candidate for the Republican nomination for Governor in 2010.
Dockery said weeks ago that she would announce in November, and and been hinting for months before that that she was seriously contemplating a run.
This is good news for the state GOP, and potentially bad news for Alex Sink and Florida Democrats.
However, Dockery has a long way to go (but lots of time) to catch the front runner in this race, Attorney General Bill McCollum. A recent poll showed McCollum blowing Dockery away, with the AG up by a 41% to 7% advantage. That will change over time, of course, as Dockery gets her name and message out.
McCollum has been working to beat Alex Sink of course, lobbying criticisms about her for months now. That will change, since he will be getting attacked from someone with his own party.
This is a victory for those in the party who resented how Party Chair Jim Greer tried to initially, clear the field for his buddy, Charlie Crist, to run unopposed for the party's nomination for Senate. Greer had been more successful in the Govenror's race, essentially telling Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson to park it when he expressed a desire to challenge McCollum earlier this year.
Ideally, you don't have contested primaries, but there are strong arguments to make that it makes the winning candidate stronger (or don't you think Barack Obama was an improved candidate getting past Hillary Clinton last year?). In fact, one could argue that both Alex Sink and Kendrick Meek might be running more dynamic races if they were being challenged within their own party. Instead, both are feted at party events as invincible, when they both have clear vulnerabilities.
It will be interesting to see where the rank and file of the party goes for in the primary: McCollum has had the scent of a loser all year long, and has raised little enthusiasm in the party. In this whole discussion in the GOP about conservatives vs. moderates, you can mark Dockery down as the moderate, which supposedly is not the place to be this year in Republican ranks.
But Republicans in Florida like to win, and the feeling has been that McCollum would have a hard time against CFO Sink. But a Dockery-Sink matchup? That would be very hard to call.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.