Republican Rep. Connie Mack IV's Senate campaign has hit a bump in the road -- a bump shaped like an electorate that doesn't want to vote for him. He's come up short in poll after poll, and papers in Florida and elsewhere have pointed it out. Well, one person is not having it -- Mack's dad.
Former Florida Sen. Connie Mack III sent out a letter to supporters yesterday snidely chastising the Miami Herald's Marc Caputo and the Tampa Bay Times' Adam Smith for liberal bias, "unprofessional behavior," and acting like "paid staffers of the Democrat Party." All because his son is losing in the polls to the guy who waltzed into the Senate when Mack III retired.
"How partisan," Mack III said. "Connie's campaign is, in fact, going great."
Going great? By what metric? The polls don't look so great, and Nelson has raised six times as much cash as Mack has.
"More new people followed Connie on Twitter last month than any other Senate candidate in the country," Mack III wrote.
Come on, Cornelius.
"The polling data clearly indicates that Connie and Bill Nelson are statistically tied," Old Mack said. "That's why the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald are attacking Connie so fiercely. They expect he's going to win."
I can't speak for what Caputo and Smith expect, but if you're a fan of evidence, then there isn't any conclusion you can come to other than to expect that Mack IV is going to lose. While there is a painfully long time before the election, as it stands now, Mack IV and Nelson are most certainly not "statistically tied."
Although the two were close back in January, a poll released late last month showed Nelson ahead of Mack, getting 44 percent of the support to Mack's 36. It'd have to be a mighty small sample size for 8 points to not make a difference. Though I learned that from an article Caputo wrote, so maybe the bastard just made up those numbers.
There was also a Tea Party straw poll that put Mack in dead last in the primary, but that's not exactly scientific.
Luckily, the poll from Public Policy Polling that came out yesterday is quite scientific, and it has Nelson further ahead than ever -- he leads Mack 47-37, according to the Tampa Tribune, and ahead of the other Republican challengers by even larger margins.
Maybe things are going to turn around. Maybe that shady super PAC money on its way in for Mack will help him. But if Mack IV's campaign were doing as well as Mack III says it is, he wouldn't need a letter from his dad to tell people about it.
