By Javier Manjarres

The four candidates in Florida’s 2012 Republican U.S. Senate race have each been trying to to convince Republican primary voters that they alone can claim the mantel of ‘true outsider’ candidate in the Senate race and are not the much despised “career politician.”  But are these candidates really being truthful to themselves and the electorate when they attempt to hang that label on each other?

When you take a closer look at the candidates, you can make a pretty strong case that all of the candidates could qualify as “career politicians”- to a certain extent.  What do you  consider a career politicitan?  Well, here is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of what a politician is:

pol·i·ti·cian

 noun ˌpä-lə-ˈti-shən

Former Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner served 8 years in the Florida Legislature before being term limited out of office-Hasner is being targeted as ‘the’ career politician in the bunch because of the four candidates, he is the only candidate to have run and to have been elected to public office.

Retired Army Colonel Mike McCalister has been the most outspoken candidate touting his ‘non-establishment’ candidacy, but how much of an outsider is McCalister?  McCalister has long been considered a Tallahassee insider because of his close association with the state Republican Party in Florida, to which he has donated thousands of dollars to it over the years.  Another Tallahassee establishment-type says that McCalister was close to Governor Charlie Crist and even counseled the former Governor on military and/or veteran affairs.

McCalister filed to run for Governor of Florida on June 14th, 2010, where he eventually garnered 100,000 votes in his primary loss to Governor Rick Scott.  With McCalister officially announcing his intentions to run for the U.S. Senate seat in June 2011, McCalister has now been seeking public office for 16 months to day, as he has admitted to have been politcking for the seat since early 2011.

“I’ve spent the last six months traveling the state to assess whether I would have the support necessary to wage a serious campaign for the United States Senate.  After meeting with numerous Republicans, Tea Party supporters, 9/12 Project members, fellow Veterans, and other conservatives from throughout Florida, it is evident to me that my lower tax, smaller government message is resonating with voters.”- Mike McCalister

So, doing the math on McCalister, if he sticks it out through the Republican Primary in August of 2011, he would have been seeking office for over 2 years.

LeMieux ran a  ‘centrist-safe’ campaign when he ran for a state house seat against an incumbent Democrat back in 1998.  LeMieux lost the race but managed to position himself for bigger and better things in Broward County Republican circles. LeMieux served as the Chairman of the Broward Republican Executive Committee before being asked in 2002 to be Chief of Staff for then Attorney General, Charlie Crist.  The two men became close friends, and  later LeMieux known by many as the  “Maestro’ of Governor Crist’s successful Gubernatorial run in 2004 and then became Governor Crist’s Chief of Staff in the Governor’s Office- many believe that the Chief of Staff position in the Governor’s Office holds more political clout than being a state representative or senator.

In 2008, LeMieux returned to the private sector where he headed the heavyweight lobbying firm, Gunster & Yoakley.  So again, in doing the math, former Senator George LeMieux has either ran for public office or worked in government as a public servant for 10 years, longer than any of his current Senatorial competitors.

So are there really any candidates in the race who are not “career politicians”, or are these candidates all stretching the truth about their opponent’s political careers simply to expedite their own political careers?  While each wants to lay claim to ‘outsider’ status, it’s closer to the truth to identify each of the candidates as an ‘insider’ who have had varying degrees of political influence and capital at their disposal throughout their careers.