FL-10: Charlie Justice Will Run Against Young

It’s time to bring ’em to Justice:

Democrat Charlie Justice will end a decade-long state legislative career to challenge C.W. Bill Young for Congress. “The decisions made in Washington D.C. more and more impact our daily lives and  that’s what drew me to public service in the first place,” said the 39-year-old state senator from St. Petersburg. “We need people in Washington that understand their decisions have real impact on the families and small businesses here.” […]

Either way, Justice says he’s in: “If he decides to retire after 40 years in Washington, we’ll thank him for his service and if he decides to run again, we’ll have a healthy debate,” said Justice, an academic adviser at the University of South Florida.

This is another major, major score for the DCCC, who hoped to lure Justice (whose state Senate district is a competitive one which mostly overlaps with Young’s 10th CD) into this race last cycle. The 10th District is one of the most evenly-split seats in the nation in terms of its partisan composition; Obama and Gore both won the district under its current lines by four and two points, respectively, while Bush won the district by a 51-49 margin in 2004.

Like Delaware’s Mike Castle, Young has routinely won re-election by massive margins, but often against unheralded and unknown challengers. Most recently, Young turned away his latest challenge from Dunedin Mayor Bob Hackworth, whose campaign suffered from being both underfunded and decidedly last-minute, by a 61-39 margin. But also like Castle, Young is getting pretty long in the tooth — he will turn 80 just weeks after the 2010 elections, and he hasn’t had to run a real race in eons. Perhaps the idea of actually needing to run a full-geared campaign will be enough to nudge the old crumb-bum into retirement.

45 thoughts on “FL-10: Charlie Justice Will Run Against Young”

  1. It was reported today that Young didn’t raise any money at all in the first quarter and has $412,000 CoH.  Retirement?  http://www.politico.com/blogs/

    Perhaps this convinced Justice to take the plunge?  Regardless, good move by Justice as I see one of three things happening:  (1) Young retires and Justice likely wins; (2) Justice beats Young; or (3) Justice loses despite running a good campaign and sets himself up as the front runner for 2012 if Young retires.

  2. I can’t think of a single politician with a more kick-ass name than Charlie Justice.  There are a whole bunch with just awful names, though, like Congressmen Boehner and Weiner.

    Hopefully Young will decide that 40 years in Congress is a nice even number to retire on.

  3. This’ll push C.W. Young into retirement. He’s already raised nothing and hasn’t run a real campaign in decades. He’s too old to be campaigning and fundraising too much. Surely he’ll want to call it wuits by now? What’s there left to fight for? He sees he’s in the minority and it’ll like be that way for a time to come.

  4. Great to see these people stepping up early.  Despite our massive gains over the past two cycles, there are still a bunch of low fruit hanging, just waiting to be picked off.  In particular, Republicans in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and especially California represent districts that are sliding out from under them.

    So far, I really only see maybe five or six vulnerable seats on our side, all freshmen elected in tough districts.  Of course this will change with retirements, but it’s a good place for us to be at this point.  There’s at least 20 or so Republicans that I already see in difficult positions, and they will probably face crippling retirements again.

  5. I believe his strategy here is to push Young into retirement.  In a Young vs. Justice race I’d stll give Young a slight edge due to incumbancy, but Justice knows Young is very close to retirement.  Even if he challenges Young and loses in 2010 he’ll probably just run again in 2012 when Young does retire.

    Plus there is next to nothig republicans can do to gerrymander this seat in 2012.  It’s already drawn about as republican as it can get.

  6. Justice currently holds slightly republican-leaning state Senate seat in Florida up for re-election in 2010.  Justice vacating that seat is going to set off a very tough open seat fight.  Though it really doesn’t make much difference since Republicans have a massive 26-14 state senate edge.

  7. Either Charlie Justice is giving up a competitive State Senate seat we’d like to hold for a kamikaze run against a true institution of Florida politics, or this is like Ron Klein versus Clay Shaw in 2006 (up-and-coming state legislator takes down aging giant of the Florida congressional delegation in one of the most expensive House races in the country).

    Which way this goes down will depend on how vigorously Young can campaign, how much money Justice can raise, how many Pinellas County Obamican types (and there are many of them who are registered Republicans but have been voting Dem for President since Clinton) finally abandon Young, and overall how strong a case Justice can lay out.

    Of course, Young is nearing 80 years old and may retire, especially if polls show a close race, but his statement about the matter sounds like someone planning to run again, or at least someone who wants people to assume he’ll run again. Might he pull a ballot switcheroo with his younger (fiftysomething) wife right around the filing deadline?

  8. in 2 days. awesome!  i was just reading rothenburg’s analysis of the dccc employing the “retirement strategy” in the last couple of cycles.  basically either hitting senior republicans in blueing districts with ads or, even better, recruiting tough opponents which cause them to rethink another run for congress.

    nice work, van hollen and team!

  9. Like, in 2006 or so?

    And yes, that is freaking awesome name.  Like, automatic law-and-order credentials or something.

  10. is he giving up his state Senate to do this?  Why not have done this in a presidential year?  Maybe this is the year then he’s going to retire and Justice knows it?

  11. Completely forgot about him.  He may not make a good candidate for Congress but I wouldn’t be surprised if he ran for the state Senate seat Justice is leaving behind.  It overlaps Dunedin.

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