Update: Skip Campbell Considering Race for State Senate
BY BUDDY NEVINS
Multi-millionaire trial attorney and former State Sen. Skip Campbell is mulling over returning to politics to run for state Senate.
George Bennett in the Palm Beach Post quotes Campbell as saying he is considering campaigning for Jeff Atwater’s Broward and Palm Beach Counties seat. Atwater is giving up the job to run for Florida Chief Financial Officer.
He was in a hearing when I first posted this item. He now has called back and I’m updating it with his comments to Browardbeat.com:
“I’ve been asked to consider it and I am,” Campbell says. “I’m going to look at the numbers.”
He says many “Democrats and Republicans” have told him there is a lack of leadership in the state Senate that he could fill.
Because term limits weeded out everybody with as much experience as Campbell and because of his own considerable skills, Campbell would be in line to be a Senate leader immediately upon returning to Tallahassee.
Campbell says he will pay for a poll to help him make a decision. But he’s in no rush.
“This is a state Senate race, not a race for Florida attorney general,” he says. “You don’t have to get into the race so early.”
When he ran the first time for state Senate, he waited until eight months before the 1996 primary to jump in, he recalls.
Of course, Campbell has one big advantage over many candidates. He can write a big check to kick off his campaign so he doesn’t have to start early to raise money.
Campbell dropped out of a race for the same seat last year, citing illness. Two years earlier in 2006, he lost a race for Florida Attorney General.
Today he’s “fine and healthy.”
If I was Campbell, I would wait to see if state Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Parkland, made a move to run for statewide office. If Ring abandoned his Senate seat, Campbell could recapture the northwest Broward district he held from 1996-2006.
Campbell agrees with me, but predicts Ring isn’t moving anyway. He can run for either seat because he has property in both districts.
If Campbell ran it would leave state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, the Fort Lauderdale Republican who entered the race for the open beachfront state Sentate seat Tuesday, facing three multi-millionaires in the race.
Nick Loeb, a well-to-do Delray Beach Republican businessman and scion of a wealthy New York financial family, has jumped into the Republican primary. State Rep. Carl Domino, a Jupiter Republican investment manager, is expected to announce for the seat as early as today.
Read the Post’s story here.
Here are the previous Browardbeat.com posts on what is shaping up to be one of the hottest races in South Florida:
Bogdanoff Could Face Two Millionaires For Senate Seat
Bogdanoff Running For State Senate
May 20th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Mr. Campbell can’t win that district. He’s too liberal.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Please . . . no.
Who next? Ben Graber?
Let’s let the next generation have a shot . . .