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Mel Martinez of Orlando, the former housing secretary for President Bush, has as good a chance as anybody running to be Florida's next U.S. senator, so it seemed worthwhile to catch his trip to Tampa the other day.
The occasion was a campaign event at a dental laboratory in the Drew Park area, north of the airport. There were molds of teeth all over the place. Workers hunched intently, peering and polishing new incisors and molars. It was impressive.
Schneider's Dental Lab is exactly the kind of small business that benefits from President Bush's tax cuts, Martinez was on hand to say. Schneider's has added seven employees recently, for a total of 15, thanks to (according to the campaign) the president's economic recovery.
Thursday happened to be April 15, Tax Day. Martinez had prepared remarks saying Congress should make all the president's tax cuts permanent, instead of letting them expire starting in 2005. That would be worth $915 a year for a family with a $40,000 annual income, he said.
Unhappily for Martinez, the local TV news folks were tied up elsewhere. Instead he had to sit down and talk to the newspaper riffraff. Okay, I said, let's keep all the president's tax cuts. But what are you going to do about the deficit and the debt?
The deficit is going to come down, Martinez replied. The Bush tax cuts are only about a quarter of the total deficit anyway. Bush was hit with a "perfect storm" of terrorist attacks and an economic downturn. If we keep the growth of spending within 4 percent a year, the deficit will soon be cut in half.
Besides, Martinez said, "I don't think the worst thing in the world will be to have some deficit spending." (That is a very Republican thing to say these days.)
Does he agree with what President Bush said at his news conference the other night, when he couldn't think of any mistakes the U.S. has made since 9/11?
"I just think the whole focus of that press conference was on fault-finding, the wrong focus," Martinez said. The same goes for the 9/11 commission, he said.
"I'm darned happy the president acted as resolutely as he did," Martinez said. Look at our success in Afghanistan, he said.
My able (and only) colleague, a reporter for a Virginia-owned newspaper that circulates in Tampa, asked about the Patriot Act.
Maybe we should revisit it later, but for now it is essential, Martinez replied. It allows our intelligence agencies to share information they couldn't before.
I couldn't help it and asked: Like which library books I check out? Martinez said there is no proof the law is being abused. I said, well, the law would keep that secret too. He offered an olive branch: "As I said, there are probably some parts of the Patriot Act we might want to take a look at."
Does he think June 30 is a realistic deadline for turning over control in Iraq? "I think we have to," he answered at once. It is important for our credibility.
Why would he be a better choice for Republicans than his primary rivals, most notably longtime U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum of Altamonte Springs, or the Tampa Bay area's own Johnnie Byrd, speaker of the Florida House?
Because, Martinez said, he offers the best combination of experience in the private sector, in local government (he was the elected chief executive in Orange County when he was tapped by the president) and in the executive branch as housing secretary.
"Three years in the president's Cabinet in a time of war is a pretty good post-graduate education," Martinez said. In addition, he is centrally positioned in the Interstate 4 corridor and would be the party's strongest nominee, he said.
He seemed like a nice guy, and was able to take some jabs without getting all pouty. But not a word comes out of his mouth that doesn't sound like the president's political guru, Karl Rove, wrote it. Maybe that's so his opponents can't make too much hay of the fact he is a ... well, a lawyer. Usually that is a bad word for Republicans, but for Martinez the White House is making an exception.