For a while, it looked like Republicans in Florida couldn’t find any high-profile candidates to run for the U.S. Senate in the wake of Bob Graham’s retirement. Now, they may have too many.<\/p>\n
The latest, and easily the strangest, of the GOP candidates is former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith, who told reporters yesterday that he will run<\/a> for Graham’s seat.<\/p>\n (For background on Smith’s bizarre background, take a look at my post<\/a> about him from last month.)<\/p>\n Smith told the AP, “I’m going to run a campaign which I basically offer my credentials to the people of Florida, my seniority, my experience in the Senate. I want to help President Bush. This is a critical state for the president.”<\/p>\n The crowd of GOP candidates is getting surprisingly crowded in a hurry. Initially, the field was limited to four Republicans: state legislators Johnnie Byrd and Dan Webster, legal activist Larry Klayman, and be former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, who lost badly<\/a> when he ran for the Senate in 2000.<\/p>\n Over the last month or so, the field has nearly doubled in size. Smith is obviously in, and Bush’s former HUD Secretary, Mel Martinez, has resigned from his cabinet post<\/a>, apparently to run for the seat<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite the White House’s backing, Martinez hasn’t exactly locked up the GOP nomination for the Senate race. For one thing, his achievements at HUD were limited to, well, er, no one can actually think of any achievements<\/a>. Complicating matters, Jeb Bush seems to resent Martinez stepping in at this stage and assuming the slot is his for the taking, while other in-state candidates have been paying their dues.<\/p>\n