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Fight With Party Might Push Unknown Senator To National Stage

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By Billy House / The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 20, 2007

WASHINGTON - He's an affable if not bland U.S. senator from Florida who once orbited the planet but has few lofty legislative achievements and little national name recognition.

Is it any wonder, then, that Democrat Bill Nelson - inoffensive, mostly unknown, and unattached to any major issues, causes or scandals - is again being talked about as vice-presidential timber?

"People around the country may vaguely think he is some character on a 1950s TV sitcom," jokes Steve Tally, author of the book, "Bland Ambition: From Adams to Quayle - The Cranks, Criminals, Tax Cheats, and Golfers Who Made It to Vice President."

Jennifer Duffy, an expert on the Senate with the Cook Political Report, a national newsletter, acknowledges "he's a very nice guy who is just not very dynamic."

But both Tally and Duffy say there is this one important other thing: Nelson enjoys significant popularity at home in what is a presidential swing-state, one of the few that could go from red to blue in 2008.

The two-term senator says he is aware of the speculation about his being a potential vice-presidential choice in newspaper columns, political blogs, newsletters and elsewhere.

However, when asked whether he wants, or expects, to be considered, Florida's senior senator doesn't directly answer the question.

"It's too early for any of that," says Nelson, 65, adding that no presidential candidate has talked to him about it anyhow.

As for now, Nelson remains perhaps the least-known big-state Democratic senator, says Ross Baker, a political science professor and expert on Congress at Rutgers University.

Nelson's relative national obscurity, Baker says, comes despite his sitting on two important Senate committees: Armed Services and Foreign Relations.

"You'd think you'd hear a lot more of him. But he's certainly not been a major antagonist of the [Bush] administration," Baker says.
Duffy adds: "He just doesn't pick fights."

Fight For Delegates, Space Travel Boost Profile

Baker and others suggest that might be changing a bit, given Nelson's sudden aggressiveness in standing up for his state against his national party in the flap with Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean and others over Florida's primary date.

"Defending the honor of Florida and its ability to have an early primary against the ex-governor of Vermont is something that could be very good for him," Baker says.

Now, as four years ago, Nelson is typically mentioned as one of the few Democrats who can deliver Florida's fourth-highest-in-the-country 27 Electoral College votes to the Democrats and with them perhaps the White House.

After all, the former U.S. House member, state treasurer, and state legislator was overwhelmingly re-elected a year ago to his second term as senator with 60 percent of the vote against Katherine Harris.

Recent polls show he remains popular.

A poll of Floridians in September by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed Nelson enjoys a 50 percent job approval, similar to ratings he has received all year. That was balanced against a 22 percent disapproval.

That compares with Florida GOP Sen Mel Martinez' 38 percent job-approval rating.

"He certainly could be an asset in helping to deliver Florida," New York-based national pollster John Zogby says.

Baker thinks "it makes a lot more sense" to put Nelson on the ticket than presidential hopefuls Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut or New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

"All of them come from states with fewer than 10 electoral votes."

Nelson's time in outer space also would set his vice-presidential candidacy apart, Tally says. Nelson's six-day flight in 1986 as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Columbia made him only the second sitting politician, after former Utah Sen. Jake Garn, to fly in space.

"He's got that astronaut thing going on … it works for him," Tally said.

Perhaps further boosting Nelson's prospects in 2008 is that Dean and the national Democratic Party have been busy alienating Florida Democrats.

The national party moved to strip Florida Democrats of their delegates to the party's national convention in response to the state's presidential primary being scheduled on Jan. 29, earlier than party rules allowed. Then the four early states got the major candidates to agree to boycott Florida and any other state holding its primary before Feb. 5.

Baker says that the presidential nominee might be able to soothe the now-ruffled feathers of Democratic activists in Florida by putting their champion, Nelson, on the national ticket.

Nelson May Be Able To Balance Ticket

Having a senator from a large Southern state also could give the Democratic ticket some regional balance if New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama got the nomination.

But not everyone agrees that choosing a running mate to carry a single state is the way to pick a running mate.

And Harris said he doubts Nelson could attract as much excitement as needed from other states and regions, particularly in the West.
Another drawback may be that Nelson is not an ultra-conservative Southern Democrat, an attribute that could balance a ticket headed by Clinton or Obama.

Although Nelson is not one of the more liberal members of the Senate, Baker said his voting record is clearly left-of-center.

Nelson has lined up with the Senate leaders and a majority of his Democratic colleagues 93.5 percent of the time in votes during the current Congress, according to a vote-tracking database published by The Washington Post.

Harris, as do others, described Nelson as a wonderful, hard-working, quiet guy.

"One of the best things you can say about him, I guess, is that he is not very offensive to anyone."

Duffy agrees.

But she said Nelson, as a campaigner, "doesn't have a reputation for being particularly energetic," much less someone who can act as an attack dog defending the presidential candidates' honor when it is vilified.

"He's not a front-and-center type," Duffy said. "In this race, neither party can have that kind of running mate."

And if the Democrats' vice-presidential nominee in 2008 is to be a senator, not a governor, then Duffy said someone like Westerner Ken Salazar of Colorado, a Hispanic, could hypothetically bring more nationwide appeal to the ticket, including in Florida.

Nelson declined to get involved in such speculation.

He emphasized, though, that his efforts in the flap regarding Florida's primary date, including suing the national party, have nothing to do with the speculation over who will be the Democrats' vice-presidential nominee. Rather, it's something that should be expected of the state's senior Democratic officeholder.

Nelson also disputes that his battles with Dean and others in the national party is bringing him more national attention, or helping to reshape his image.

"No, this is inside baseball. Only [with] the people who are paying close attention to politics - and then mostly just those in Florida," Nelson said.

How, then, would Nelson himself describe his national image?

"I don't care. It is what it is," Nelson responds.

But Tally certainly has his opinion.

Nelson, he said "seems to be a wonderful man who you'd want to be your neighbor, but I just can't identify him with any burning issue or anything he wants to change in our society," said Tally.

"In other words, I think Bill Nelson would be a good vice-presidential candidate," he said.

Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 662-7673 or bhouse@tampatrib.com.

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