Mitch Perry
Mel Martinez is a solid Jeb Bush guy, but he acknowledges that Donald Trump has tapped into something in the GOP body politic, and is not this year’s model of a Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann. Both of those Republican candidates shared time as the front runner for the GOP presidential nomination during the 2011 runup to 2012.
“I think it’s more than that,” the former U.S. senator and HUD Secretary told Florida Politics just moments before he introduced Bush at a town-hall meeting in Lakewood on Monday. “I think Donald Trump’s been around the block a number of times,” he said, warming up to the subject. “I find it intriguing you know, as someone who’s had a background of a Democrat, Clinton supporter, you know, positions that are not consistent with a conservative Republican. How he accommodates that? I think it’s really remarkable.”
When asked his thoughts about the possibility that after the primary season Trump opts to run as a third-party candidate, Martinez said that would be horrible.
“I think it would be disastrous for the party. It would elect Hillary Clinton. Period. But I hope not,” he said. “I think he’s been fairly treated. I think he’s going to be in the debate, he’s going to be able to say his piece, and then the numbers will tell. We’ll start the primaries and that’s when it goes beyond the polls and what he said or didn’t say. But there’s no question that there’s a tremendous surge of people who are interested in his candidacy, and I think it speaks to a frustration in Washington and a frustration with the Obama administration.”
Martinez said he thinks Bush’s campaign is “doing great.” Most polls have the former Florida governor trailing Trump nationally as well as in New Hampshire, the first primary election of the 2016 campaign. It takes place next February.
Martinez political career has intersected with the Bushes for the past 20 years. In 1994, Martinez, then an Orlando lawyer, was picked by future Family Research Council president Ken Connor to be his running mate in the 1994 GOP gubernatorial race. That was the election where GOP nominee Bush lost to Lawton Chiles in November.
In 1998, he was elected chairman of Orange County, a job that later changed to Orange County mayor. Then in 2001, he became George W. Bush‘s Secretary of Housing, Urban and Development. In 2004, he ousted Democrat Betty Castor for senator, a job he quit in 2009.
Looking around the room before Bush began speaking on Monday in Longwood, Martinez noted the racial diversity in the room, where there were a number of Latinos in the audience. He said that he was glad to know that Bush would be addressing the National Urban League’s meeting later this week in South Florida.
“I think it’s really important to be there,” he says, reflecting that the only other Republican scheduled to speak is Ben Carson, also the only African-American in the race. “I think that’s a really important way to reach into communities,” Martinez said of Bush’s declaration that he will campaign in areas where Republicans traditionally haven’t.
Martinez currently works for JP Morgan Chase, where he is chairman of the Southeast and Latin America regions and chairman of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, the philanthropic wing of the financial institution.
