Oil Driving the Races

Some infighting among the Democrats running for Attorney General shows how much the oil spill in the Gulf will drive every Cabinet race in Florida this year. And it renews a bit of my faith in AG hopeful Dave Aronberg, even if it raises the prospect of the primary getting ugly. Indeed, the episode shows exactly why good primary races can make for better general election candidates regardless who wins.

The matter began earlier this month when it was revealed Attorney General candidate Dan Gelber's law firm took on BP as a client. Gelber told the Daily Business Review in mid-June that any connection between Akerman Senterfitt and BP was a non-issue in the campaign, but by the end of the month he had resigned from the firm over the whole affair.

The timing of the resignation, though, appears tricky. Aronberg on June 28 called for Gelber to resign from the firm. Then Gelber said he already had, and had done it because the firm took BP as a client, but just forget to tell everybody about that. But Aronberg continued to hammer Gelber, noting the North Miami Democrat wasn't exactly high-tailing it out of the office. "The Republican attack machine would have a field day with this," Aronberg notes. I tend to agree.

So finally the AG race gets interesting.

More than a month ago I was expressing some disappointment in Aronberg for not making oil a bigger issue in the campaign this year. As I said then, it is quite possible the next AG will sit on a Cabinet with the power to allow drilling in state waters, 3 to 10 miles from shore, and Gelber at that time was making far more noise about the matter. Since that time, Aronberg has joined Gelber is calling for a special session bannning such drilling, but was woefully late to the party. Now, he is here and fighting hard.

Of course, I am pretty sure Aronberg is wrong about there being any chance Gelber could be disqualified from representing the state as AG because of a connection to Akerman. Even if Gelber could not represent the case in person, he could put one of many attorneys working within the Attorney General's Office on it.

But raising this issue is good for Aronberg, and it is good for Gelber. Already, Aronberg has applied pressure that makes Gelber a better candidate by forcing the state Senator to disassociate himself from BP and Akerman in any way. And it also raises the profile of the race substantially. While nobody in this race is exactly a household name in Florida, Republican Jeff Kottkamp has a higher profile as Lt. Governor than either Gelber has as a state Senator or Aronberg does as a state Representative. And since Aronberg is best known in Southwest Florida, where Kottkamp also lives, upping the profile of the Democrats in this race is vitally important for him.

I think oil will be the most important factor in this race come fall. After all, Kottmamp's great contribution to the oil effort has been to organize a prayer. The Democrats, meanwhile, are engaged in a fiesty debate over who is best prepared to hold BP to task for threatening our coastline with the worth environmental screw-up in American history. You tell me who sounds more serious about serving the public? The AG office serves as the ultimate prosecutor working on behalf of the state, and holding companies accountable who threaten the public welfare is what its lead official should care about more than prayer circles.

Oil is already hitting Florida shores. Once our sands are infected with sludge, we should expect the mudslinging to have more sticking power.