NAPLES — A Naples real estate broker has his eye on some Washington, D.C., real estate – the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated by Mel Martinez in 2010.
Tom Walsh, a 24-year Naples resident and owner of Walsh Real Estate Services, is testing the waters and may decide to run by mid-May.
He plans to meet with as many county Republican Party leaders as possible to make his case and see how he is received as a candidate.
“I think the public is ready now for a basic guy, not a professional politician, not a lawyer, just a family man concerned about the future who embraces the principles of the constitution,” said the 65-year-old father of four and grandfather to 11.
While not a career politician, Walsh has experience as an elected official.
In a long-shot race in the 1970s, he won the Republican primary for the Ohio state Senate, beating out an established politician and a well-known business man, Walsh said.
He then went on to unseat a Democrat in the heavily Democratic Stark County, Ohio. Walsh served from 1978 to 1985.
Key platform issues include illegal immigration, states’ rights and fiscal responsibility.
The lifelong Republican has spent a couple of months talking with contacts throughout the state.
“The support and enthusiasm is pretty high,” he said. “Typically, the first question is, ‘Well, gee, who is this guy and why does he think he can run?’ I go back to my days in Ohio. Nobody knew me from a hole in the ground.”
In January, a poll of likely candidates for Martinez’s seat showed Attorney General Bill McCollum with a 40 percent favorable rating, followed closely by U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, Fort Myers, with 37 percent, the Quinnipiac University (Connecticut) poll reported.
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