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STEVE BOUSQUET and ANITA KUMARAs the Aug. 31 primary approaches, candidates will jostle for undecided voters in television ads.
TALLAHASSEE - As the Republican U.S. Senate candidates prepare for their first statewide TV debate tonight, they are plotting a much bigger strategy: a barrage of TV ads aimed at deciding the outcome three weeks from today.
"This is it, right here. The ballgame," says Richard Pinsky, an adviser to candidate Doug Gallagher.
With polls showing more than a third of likely voters undecided, the outcome of the Aug. 31 primary could turn on which candidate is on TV the most with the most appealing pitch at a time when many TV sets are tuned to the Olympic games.
Mel Martinez, who has consistently placed second in polls, has reserved $2-million in TV ads over the next three weeks, including $1.3-million in the week leading up to the primary.
Bill McCollum, who has been the front-running Republican since the race began but whose once commanding lead has narrowed, bought nearly $500,000 in ads during that same period. McCollum entered the race with higher name recognition and has outspent Martinez in the Republican-heavy TV markets of Fort Myers and Jacksonville.
Gallagher, a Coral Gables businessman who has funded his campaign with $3.6-million of his own money, has not made advance TV ad buys. His personal checks to his campaign have diminished over the past few weeks, with the most recent installment of about $249,000 last weekend.
A fourth candidate, outgoing House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, R-Plant City, is advertising on radio only. Campaign manager Wayne Garcia said Byrd will buy some broadcast TV time.
McCollum, Martinez, Gallagher and Byrd will meet at 7 tonight in Orlando for an hourlong debate on Florida NBC affiliates (WFLA-TV Ch. 8 in the Tampa Bay area).
The figures on the broadcast TV ad purchases are from Media Placement Technologies of Alexandria, Va., Gallagher's media buyer. TV stations are required to notify candidates as their opponents place orders for future commercials.
Martinez's campaign said the figures cited were accurate, but McCollum's camp said the numbers are too low and do not accurately reflect his strategy.
Martinez already bought the bulk of his air time, while McCollum buys more of his time weekly.
"You're raising and spending," said McCollum's spokeswoman, Shannon Gravitte.
Through June, the most recent data available, Martinez and McCollum were about even in money raised. But reports showed Martinez had about $800,000 more on hand than McCollum.
To reach a comparable audience costs far more in Miami than in Tampa or Orlando. Nearly half the expected primary vote is in the Tampa Bay and Orlando markets.
What is widely anticipated, but not yet clear, is whether McCollum will begin a stretch of negative ads dredging up Martinez's past as a trial lawyer who supported Democrats. Martinez's TV ad emphasizes his White House ties as President Bush's former housing secretary.
"We want to be sure that before Republican voters walk in the polls on Election Day, that they know he was a member of the president's Cabinet," said Martinez's spokeswoman, Jennifer Coxe.
Unlike the Republicans, Democratic Senate candidates have not bought in advance except for a few ads in the last week of the campaign. They generally buy weekly.
The Democrats have not purchased much TV time in the Tampa Bay or Miami-Fort Lauderdale markets because those are the homes of the three rivals: Betty Castor of Tampa, Peter Deutsch of Hollywood and Alex Penelas of Miami.
Most of their TV ads have been concentrated in North Florida, home to about a fourth of Democratic primary voters.
David Beattie, a pollster for the Castor campaign, said he expects the candidates to use their remaining money on TV ads in the closing stretch. Each campaign will spend at least as much as they have so far, though probably much more.
"If you have the money to do, you do it," Beattie said. "You spend it all in the media."
Penelas, running third in polls and fundraising, will air ads statewide this week, touting his new stance that U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of 2005.
Deutsch, a congressman from Hollywood, has spent more than $850,000 in the past two weeks statewide and likely will increase his media buys in the next three weeks. He has the most money on hand of any candidate in the race from either party: $4.2-million on June 30.
Castor has not run ads statewide. She has been on the air for four weeks, alternating three ads in North and Central Florida and West Palm Beach. The ads are about Castor's experience, veterans' issues and her work with the Interstate 4 corridor when she was president of the University of South Florida. She reported $2.2-million in the bank June 30.
EMILY's List, a national fundraising group that supports Democratic women who favor abortion rights, also began airing TV ads for Castor a week ago. The group is spending $800,000 for two weeks - far more than Castor herself.