It’s generally a warning sign if a member of Congress can’t win more than 55 percent of the vote in the primary. It’s even more alarming when that same congressman can’t handily defeat an opponent who was charged with public intoxication and found sleeping on a park bench outside a local high school.
But that’s the situation Rep. Ric Keller (R-Fla.) faces. And after eking past scandal-plagued conservative radio host Todd Long in the Republican primary, he is now at risk of losing his seat to a deep-pocketed lawyer and businessman in an Orlando-area district that trends Democratic.
Keller believes his saving grace is that the Democratic nominee, Alan Grayson, brings to the race a record of being an outspoken anti-war activist, which could brand him too liberal for the district. A 2006 Wall Street Journal profile portrayed Grayson as a fierce opponent of the Iraq war. The story shows him driving a car with the bumper sticker “Bush Lied, People Died.”http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13871.htmlThe only publicly released poll since the primary was sponsored by Democrat Grayson's campaign. It shows him leading incumbent Keller 44%-40%. Normally, an incumbent shown trailing in a poll will quickly release a counter-poll to dispel fears about his or her vulnerability. This was the case in NH-02, where Democrat Paul Hodes released a poll showing him up by double-digits in response to a Republican poll that showed his lead within the MoE. Unlike Hodes, Keller has been reticent to release his polling data, a clear sign that Grayson's poll isn't far off the mark.
Could FL-08 be one of the districts that sees an upset this cycle? The three factors I'll be watching are money (will Grayson continue to self-fund for the general?), negativity (will Keller pull a Gerlach and hold his seat simply by making his opponent unpalatable to swing voters?), and national forces (what role will the foreclosure debacle play in this race?)
