Florida District 16 Candidates

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post ranks Florida's District 16 as one of the most vulnerable for Democrats. Tim Mahoney currently holds the Congressional seat. Possible candidates running against him are Gail Harrell, Palm Beach City council member Hal Valeche and Tom Rooney. The first two inspire little excitement. The third is the wild card.

Rooney is the grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers owner Art Rooney. He has served as President of the Palm Beach County Republican Party. The problem is he has zero name recognition. His name was floated as an opponent for Katherine Harris in the Republican Senate primary. The numbers were ugly.

If the election for the Republican nomination for United States Senator in 2006 were held today, whom would you support? (Republicans only)
Katherine Harris 37%
Tommy Franks 30%
Mark Foley 5%
Allan Bense 4%
Tom Lee 4%
Ginny Brown-Waite 3%
Dave Weldon 3%
Daniel Webster 1%
Tom Rooney 1%
Undecided 12%

Republicans will certainly raise tons of cash for district 16. They already started a web site called "The Real Democrat Story." Notice the spelling?

Republicans are using the internet to create a spam chain letter.

The NRCC Web site claims that each of the targeted Democrats have amassed voting records “identical to San Francisco Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” the California Democrat who holds strongly liberal views in her own right. The site has examples of how members voted on key issues such as energy, jobs and health care.

The NRCC’s strategy is to use “viral” marketing, employing existing networks to spread information, to reach one million Republican and Democratic e-mail recipients, each of whom would be encouraged to forward the message to five friends.

Mahoney is fighting back.

According to a story in Thursday's Washington post, staffers at the General Services Administration participated in a Jan. 26 videoconference in which J. Scott Jennings, White House deputy director of political affairs, who works for Rove, briefed political appointees about plans to target 20 congressional Democrats in 2008.

"Recent e-mails prove that he was conducting an illegal campaigning scheme designed to influence federal bureaucrats in the workplace," Mahoney wrote in his fundraising pitch. "He has been making the rounds to these federal buildings in a crusade against the GOP's top targeted democrats for the 2008 cycle, like me!"

Contribute to Tim Mahoney.