by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The dust has barely settled from the president’s successful re-election campaign and already Duval County Republican Party chair Mike Hightower has his sights set on the next election. This time it’s his name on the ballot.
After helping orchestrate President George W. Bush’s larger-than-expected victory in Florida, Hightower is granting himself exactly four days of relative relaxation with his family. Then it’s head-first back into politics as he returns to his lobbying duties at Blue Cross Blue Shield and turns his attention toward his own bid for re-election as the local party leader.
“My term (as chair) is up in December, and I will run for re-election,” said Hightower.
He’s held the office since January, when he stepped up from second-in-command to take over from former chair Tom Slade. It’s been a busy year for Hightower. Florida was widely predicted to occupy ground zero in the presidential election and his volunteer army raised money and roused voters in anticipation of the fight of their lives.
They weren’t disappointed. Although Bush carried Florida with a surprisingly wide margin, the outcome nationwide wasn’t certain until Wednesday morning. Hightower was working on 45 minutes of sleep when he heard Sen. John Kerry had called Bush to concede. A short time later, he found out Republican Senate candidate Mel Martinez had edged Betty Castor, flipping Democrat Bob Graham’s vacant seat to the Republican side of the aisle.
Hightower credited Kerry with a hard-fought campaign, but was quick to point out that Bush carried more than half the popular vote nationally. It was the first time since Bush’s father won in 1988 that any candidate took more than 50 percent of the popular vote. As Hightower ticked off Republican gains in Senate and House seats, his smile could be heard through the phone.
“This will be looked at as a civics lesson. We got a significant change in the House and Senate. The voters sent a mandate,” said Hightower.
Early on Tuesday evening, exit polls indicated that mandate might be heading in the opposite direction. Hightower said he didn’t flinch when he heard early reports that Kerry was leading Florida. He said 37 years of campaign experience have taught him that only one poll matters: the final vote tally.
“The amazing thing to me is, how many experts could get it wrong, and then they couldn’t admit it when the results were coming in,” he said. “When the results obviously didn’t match up with what they projected, they were trying to find fault with the results instead of their projections.”
Those projections underestimated the depth of commitment from Republican voters to their president, said Hightower. It’s a connection that wasn’t there four years ago, when Bush was unfamiliar outside of Texas. In the subsequent years, Bush’s leadership through terrorist attacks and tough economic times have forged a unique bond between the president and his supporters, said Hightower. As a result, the high voter turnout that was supposed to boost Kerry, benefited Bush instead.
The turnout was driven in Florida by volunteer organizers sent from the national party. Not one of them was over 30 years old, but Hightower called them the most tenacious and efficient group he’d campaigned with.
“I was in awe,” he said.
Predictions of widespread lawsuits, vote challenges and fraud also failed to materialize locally. Hightower thinks that’s because those predictions came from the same bunch of out-of-towners that predicted a Kerry victory.