No one wants to admit that the millions of dollars neophyte politicos Jeff Greene and Rick Scott have sunk into their campaigns for U.S. Senate and Governor just might be bringing voters to the ballot box.
Toss in maverick Charley Crist's independent run for U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio's stirring up the forces of the far right, basking in the national spotlight, and Kendrick Meek locked in a nasty battle with Greene. Don't forget Bill McCollum. He's duked it out with Rick Scott and it has become double ugly.
Does all this have voting public's attention? Just maybe. Interviewed by Capitol News Tallahassee, resident Marlene Greenfield said she voted early.
"We like to vote early, in fact we used to go downtown to the courthouse and we would have to stand in line just to vote."
Greenfield is one of more than 360,000 Floridians who cast early ballots, a 30 percent increase from Florida's 2006 Primary Election.
Are voters avoiding what might be a busy primary election?
Lester Sola, who runs the Miami-Dade Election Department, won't comment on what the turnout election day will be, but he will discuss trends.
"Historically the average is around a 15-16 percent turnout. Thus far, 9 percent of eligible voters have participated in the absentee and early voting. If history is any indication, we might surpass that number a bit," said Sola. Basically, what Sola is saying is the absentee and early voting turnout is higher, and that could reflect in the general election. When asked about the big bucks being spent he says, "we do not analyze."
In the just-completed Miami-Dade County absentee voting, 71,355 cast ballots. Back in 2006, 37,033 registered voters voted absentee. The absentee vote is almost double.
What's it all mean? Hard to tell. The economy? The Tea Party? A negative reaction to all the money being tossed around? Pundits will speculate late Tuesday night, and it just might get back to all those dollars the two "bucks-up outsiders" spent to buy your vote. If nothing else, it appears their greenbacks just might have stirred the political pot.
