What makes Paula Dockery run?

When Charlie Crist decided earlier this year that he'd run for the U.S. Senate rather than a second term as governor, Florida Democrats exulted. Their excitement was three-fold: The state's most popular politician was now out of the race for governor; after a 12-year Democratic drought the party had its best candidate in a long time, CFO Alex Sink, waiting in the wings; and the GOP's anointed choice, 64-year-old Attorney General Bill McCollum, was hardly an inspired one, perpetuating the image of the Republican Party as a bastion for old white men.

Apparently, Republican State Senator Paula Dockery agrees — at least with the idea that McCollum is beatable.

After months of hinting that she was considering a challenge, the Lakeland-based legislator announced last week that she would oppose McCollum for the gubernatorial nomination.

To say the odds against Dockery are steep would be a massive understatement.

She's behind in fund-raising, name recognition and popularity, with a recent poll showing her trailing McCollum by over 30 percent.

So what makes Paula run?

In a brief interview with CL last week, the 48-year-old Dockery said that, until recently, she had been planning to finish out her term in the State Senate and ride off into the sunset when her current term expired in 2012.

But her own dissatisfaction with the state party, and what she calls a grass-roots effort to draft her into the race, have led to her candidacy.

"I started hearing from people that I was restoring their faith in government. That's some pretty heady stuff. So I thought, I'll step it up a notch, and go into a race where I'll have the bully pulpit, the power of the veto pen, to make a difference."

Dockery made headlines and won followers the past two years with her relentless focus on staving off a $641 million commuter rail deal between CSX Corporation and the Florida Department of Transportation.

Dockery describes the deal, which began with FDOT negotiating the purchase of 61.5 miles of rail in Central Florida in 2006, as a "freight subsidy for CSX disguised as commuter rail."

Dockery also says she's driven to run by what she says is a major failure in leadership at the top of the state party. Chairman Jim Greer alienated many in the GOP earlier this year with his attempts to clear the field for his buddy Charlie Crist as support for former House Speaker (and now conservative icon) Marco Rubio was beginning to emerge. Greer attempted the same maneuver with the governor's race, when he essentially ordered Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson to sit down and shut up just as Bronson was preparing to announce his candidacy.

But Dockery appears to have gathered energy from thwarting Greer's dream of a bloodless gubernatorial primary. And she seems to be talking not only about Greer but also the current governor when she says her party has lost its way in recent years. She mentions the names of Alan Mendelsohn and Scott Rothstein, two major political fundraisers for Crist who have become entangled in scandals this year.

"We were ethical, honest, principled," she says with pride of her 1996 class of GOP representatives, whose election put the State House in Republican hands. "But over the past 13 years we've splintered."

Whether that allows her to make the case effectively against McCollum — without tearing down the party — remains a central question. But Republicans who support the current attorney general for governor admit that he's nobody's version of the perfect candidate.

In fact, many would say that he is charismatically challenged.

GOP strategist (and CL contributor) Chris Ingram calls McCollum one of the worst candidates he's ever seen on the stump. But McCollum's conservative bona fides take a second fiddle to no one, Ingram adds, and certainly not to Dockery, which is why McCollum will continue to do well with the Florida GOP base.

But Tampa-based Republican consultant April Schiff doesn't discount the significance of charisma, or the lack thereof. She says that the battle for governor next year in Florida will be determined by which candidate can successfully garner the support of independents, and personality is certainly part of the calculus that voters will consider.

When asked about McCollum, Dockery refused to take any direct shots, but simply said that she's heard others praise her as being an excellent (and thus better) general election candidate.

University of Central Florida Professor Aubrey Jewett agrees that Dockery comes across in style and tone as more moderate than McCollum, "and in politics that's 3/4ths of the battle."

Did anyone say moderate? Isn't that a dirty word this year in Republican politics?

Looking at her record, it might be stretching things a bit to describe Dockery with "the M word." The day after her announcement, the former head of the National Rifle Association in Florida, Marion Hammer, sent out an e-mail hailing her as having a "perfect A+ record on Second Amendment issues" and as "a true champion of Freedom, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights."

Dockery's also pro-life, having sponsored two anti-abortion bills in the legislature, including a controversial parental notification bill that is now state law. However, in 2008 she was one of the few Republicans who voted against an anti-abortion bill that would have forced pregnant women to have a sonogram.

She's garnered respect from both sides of the aisle for her support of the environment, and for refusing to join the veritable lynch mob that voted to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo on life support in 2005.

Although the candidates in any GOP primary over the next year are likely to try to one-up each other in terms of how conservative they are, in Florida the gubernatorial candidates will quickly need to pivot toward a more centrist mien to pick up independents in the two-month general election.

Theoretically, that's where Dockery can best show her strength.

As an example, UCF Professor Jewett referred to last week's election in Virginia, where Republican Bob McDonnell easily won the race for governor. Although considered socially conservative, McDonnell backed away from that stance during the campaign, instead running a non-ideological race, emphasizing the dire problems with the economy.

Tampa attorney and longtime Democratic Party activist Chris Griffin says that he knows personally that Alex Sink is being financially supported by some Republicans (whom he did not want to name). Sink's extensive banking experience (though perhaps not as attractive as before the financial crash of '08) is a part of her crossover appeal, and certainly isn't likely to be matched by the ideologically conservative McCollum, who is perhaps best known from his two decades in Congress for being one of the House Managers who impeached Bill Clinton in 1998.

When CL asked Dockery if she agreed with what some critics have said about McCollum's tenure as AG — that he is focused too much on cyber crime and gang-related violence to the exclusion of other problems — she said that she feels on those two issues she can compete directly with him. She cited a bill the attorney general was pushing that she sponsored this year in the Senate that allows the victims of child pornography to seek financial redress of at least $150,000 for those who download or distribute their images.

But can she compete financially? Observers say this is where her late start may doom her. Bill McCollum already has $1.9 million in his coffers. Dockery is starting from scratch. To give a recent example of what it's cost competitors, in 2006 Charlie Crist spent nearly $20 million in his primary and general election victories over Tom Gallagher and Jim Davis.

And it didn't help that the day Dockery made her campaign announcement, the big dog in Florida GOP politics, former Governor Jeb Bush, endorsed McCollum for governor. Though not seen as a critical blow, several Republican sources said that in a race like this, it's definitely better to have Jeb on your team.

Whether Paula Dockery can restore honor and integrity to her party is something that she'll only get a chance to prove if Florida Republicans choose her next year. But by challenging her flawed but leading opponent, she may be doing Jim Greer and the rest of the Florida GOP leadership a favor — making Bill McCollum an ultimately better candidate to face Alex Sink next year.

But Paula Dockery's intentions aren't altruistic. Buzzed by the attention and the chance to reform her party, she's just made the Republican race for governor potentially quite exciting in 2010.

This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2009.