Departed Bush Cabinet member Mel Martinez is drawing shots from Democratic corners in his bid to be the Republican nominee for Florida’s open U.S. Senate seat, an indication that he is the candidate they fear most in the August primary.
This week, the District-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington accused the former secretary of housing and urban development of taking money at a political fund-raiser before becoming a formal candidate.
The group, a liberal answer to conservative watchdog groups such as Judicial Watch, stated in a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission that more than $5,100 was raised by the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee at a December luncheon to benefit an unnamed federal official. The watchdog group contends that the official was Mr. Martinez, who had been present but had not yet announced his candidacy.
The Martinez campaign said there is “zero basis” for the complaint.
Mr. Martinez, who announced his Senate bid in January, also has been dogged by a Democrat-led accusation that he used his travel budget while working at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to make stops in Florida to raise his political profile.
While he is the favorite based on his merit from the Cabinet position in a state where Republicans heavily support the president, Mr. Martinez is trailing the lead primary candidate, former Rep. Bill McCollum, 27 percent to 18 percent in a Mason-Dixon poll taken earlier this month.
The effort to impede Mr. Martinez is a natural, said Brad Coker, pollster for Mason-Dixon, because of the Republican’s appeal as a moderate and his ability to raise money — $1.7 million in less than three months, according to financial reports.
“The Democrats fear Martinez more than they fear McCollum, and those are the two front-runners,” Mr. Coker said. “They can paint McCollum as too far to the right. But Martinez is the ’moderate,’ and he comes from Orange County in the state’s swing vote area. And he may be someone who will appeal to Hispanics beyond the Cuban constituency. So on paper, they have reason to fear him.”
The Aug. 31 Republican primary is erupting into a rough-and-tumble affair in which Mr. Martinez is a hit magnet.
The Cuban-born immigrant also has been criticized about his tenure as president of the Florida Academy of Trial Lawyers and past donations to Democratic candidates, including Sen. Bob Graham in 1985, whose seat Mr. Martinez hopes to fill.
Meanwhile, Mr. Martinez’s deficit in the polls is easy to explain, said campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Coxe: It looks as if the Democratic efforts have had an effect, albeit a very early and limited one.
Miss Coxe acknowledged that Democrats have been doing their best to knock Mr. Martinez down.
“The event that the group complained about was not a fund-raiser, the travel issue was driven by Democrats who don’t want to see us win … and the money Mel Martinez has received from the trial lawyers is very small,” she said.
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