Hugh Rodham - Run For U.S. Senate

Run For U.S. Senate

Rodham left the public defenders office to run for the United States Senate in Florida in 1994. He won the Democratic Party nomination by defeating Mike Wiley, a talk radio personality and advocate of UFO conspiracy theories, by a margin of 58 to 42 percent in a runoff election, after earlier finishing first in a four-person primary field with 34 percent. After the first primary, the third-place finisher, flamboyant Miami lawyer and perennial losing candidate Ellis Rubin, joined forces with Rodham as an "senior executive consultant" and hatchet man. In the presence of Rodham at a press conference, Rubin levelled the accusation that Wiley was hiding his Jewish faith by changing his name from his birth name, Michael Schreiber, and that Wiley "changed his name before the campaign to deceive voters about his Jewish religion." Wiley accordingly refused to endorse Rodham after the runoff. Rodham then lost by a 70%-30% margin to incumbent Senator Republican Connie Mack III in the general election. Although Bill and Hillary Clinton both campaigned for him, his organization was unable to take advantage of their help, he had few funds, only one television commercial, and little support from the Florida Democratic party establishment in a year that saw Republican gains everywhere. After the election, Rubin switched allegiance again and charged Rodham with election law violations in the first primary; the Federal Elections Commission eventually dismissed the allegations. Rodham subsequently tried to unseat the Dade County Democratic Party Chairman; after badly losing that race, he disappeared from the Florida political scene.