In Shocker, 'St. Pete Times' Pulls Candidate Endorsement

By: Jennifer Saba In what it called "an almost unprecedented step," the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times today rescinded its editorial endorsement in a key U.S. Senate primary, which will take place on Tuesday.

In doing so, it threw its support from former U.S. Housing Secretary Mel Martinez to U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, in the Republican contest.

Robert Friedman, deputy editor of editorials, told E & P, "No one can recall if it's happened in a statewide race. It has with one or two local races out of thousands. But we felt the need to rescind our position."

Asked about the public and political response so far, Friedman said, "Most of the prominent Republicans are in New York, so the timing for the primary is odd. Certainly both campaigns have responded as you would predict, but there's not been an overwhelming response from readers."

He said the reconsideration was sparked last week by "unusually harsh" political attacks on McCollum for being "anti-family" and "the new darling of the homosexual extremists. If you know Bill at all, he's one of the most conservative people in Washington, D.C. So this caused a lot of members of the board to reconsider."

The Times originally backed Martinez in the Republican primary. But that was "before Martinez took his campaign into the gutter with hateful and dishonest attacks on his strongest opponent, former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum," the paper said on its editorial page. "The Times is not willing to be associated with bigotry. As a result, we are taking the almost unprecedented step of rescinding our recommendation of Martinez."

The Times noted that it takes its political endorsements seriously. "Taking back a recommendation is an even more serious action, and we do so with regret, and some embarrassment," the paper said. "However, failing to act in response to Martinez's cynical attacks would risk damaging the trust we have worked to build with readers over the course of hundreds of election campaigns."

The editorial continued: "No matter what else Martinez may accomplish in public life, his reputation will be forever tainted by his campaign's nasty and ludicrous slurs of McCollum in the final days of this race. The slurs culminated with Martinez campaign advertisements that label McCollum, one of the most conservative moralists in Washington during his 20 years as a U.S. representative, 'the new darling of the homosexual extremists' because he once favored a hate crime law that had bipartisan support."

The Times said that while it agrees with McCollum on few issues, he has proved during 10 terms in Congress "to be an intelligent and hard-working representative who was true to his conservative principles. ... The Times now recommends McCollum to Republican voters in Tuesday's primary."