What’s more, Quinnipiac also shows a major turnaround in the state’s gubernatorial race. Michael E. Arth’s quixotic campaign aside, this was supposed to be a contest between Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) and Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink (D). But now, McCollum has fallen 13 points behind health care industry executive Rick Scott, whose multi-million-dollar ad buy seems to have worked.

Coupled with the bizarre upset in South Carolina on Tuesday, this is shaping up to be one strange election season.

Having just entered the race I’m an underdog and a dark horse, but I’m not running a dog and pony show. I’m in to win it. They have the money (see the banner ad above) but I have the ideas (see http://www.michaelearth.org) and I’m not afraid to put them out there. By the end of the race, the voters will know who I am and they will decide which is more important–the issues or pay-to-play.

I was told by a top Democratic official that because I didn’t have $3 million to start, and $1.3 million a week to win, not one single word would be written about me in the mainstream press. I asked the Daytona Beach News Journal if this was true and they repudiated it with a huge above-and-below-the-fold front page story. ( http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOn… )

“The banner ad above” refers to the Alex Sink (Arth’s formidable opponent in the Democratic primary) Google ad that’s been appearing on our page above related posts — you’re likely seeing it now.

And perhaps in a sign that Arth is looking to lend a more serious aspect to his campaign (at the expense of his trademark humor), in the time that I’ve been writing this post, he took down this text that sat at the top of his homepage this morning and moved it to the “About Michael” page:

Hercules, the mythical Greek god, is known for having overcome incredible challenges in the face of danger and evil. But despite his courage, wisdom and resolve, it is not clear whether Hercules could have done what DeLand resident Michael Arth has done in transforming a crack haven into one of DeLand’s most unique neighborhoods.

Other commenters, staunchly supportive of Arth, have suggested that by highlighting the sillier aspects of his website, I’ve diminished the seriousness of his campaign. To which I respond that by including passages like these on his site, he’s asking for them to be highlighted. And for an underdog candidate, an attention-grabbing sense of humor isn’t such a bad thing.

Michael Edward Arth was born near Liverpool, England at a U.S. Air Force Base on April 27, 1953. In 1955 his parents moved to New Mexico. This was followed by a move to Midland, Texas where he was taught at a parochial school by the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, all of whom were named Mary, but none of whom were immaculately conceived. His own mother however was born on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, but named Evelyn Yvonne instead of Mary. [...]

On his father’s side the family name, Arth, means “Bear” and is an ancient Celtic form of the name Arthur, which may just be a lazy way of saying the Welsh phrase, “Arth Vahr.” Arth Vahr means Bear Great. It is not known why they did not just say “Great Bear,” but backwards or forwards it still refers to the Great Bear Constellation, the mythological source of the King Arthur legend. [...]

If you have not guessed by now, this is actually an autobiography written in the third person partly because some of the Marys considered I-itis a disease. I was also convinced that it looked more professional to pretend that I just happened to find someone to write my biography who knows as much about me as I do….

So anyway, I sought solace from the frocked Marys and the scorching desert sun by digging underground forts in the desert wherein I could utter the shortest word in our language without shame. The nuns would surely have found my underground activities to be quasi-pagan in nature, thus adding the lure of the forbidden to one of the reasons for crawling into a desert spider hole long before a certain ex-dictator publicized the practice.

This guy is currently polling at just four percent in the primary, far behind Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink’s 49 percent. But 49 ain’t 50, and 47 percent are still undecided, so keep an eye on Arth!

(H/T RCP)