Dockery on both sides of issue

ST. PETERSBURG — As a state senator, Paula Dockery was one of two women to vote for a bill requiring women seeking abortions in the first trimester to get ultrasound exams.

But as a candidate for governor, Dockery told a St. Petersburg crowd Friday, she would veto the very same bill.

"If I was governor, would I sign the bill? No," said Dockery, a Republican from Lakeland.

With her campaign for governor languishing, according to polls like the new St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 one showing her at 3 percent, Dockery tried to balance her anti-abortion roots with her image as a maverick in a meeting with the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club.

Dockery said she voted against a similar ultrasound requirement in the 2009 legislative session, and voted against adding the language to a larger health care bill in 2010.

But once it was inserted, she voted for the overall bill — which Gov. Charlie Crist has since threatened to veto. The bill passed the Senate 23-16, meaning Dockery's vote wasn't crucial to the outcome. "I am pro-life woman," Dockery said. "But I really hate the idea of government mandating an unnecessary medical procedure."

In other comments, Dockery tried to distinguish herself from Attorney General Bill McCollum by highlighting cases where she strayed from the Republican Party — whether it be in opposing the high-speed rail deal in central Florida, the U.S. Sugar land purchase in the Everglades, or the controversial teacher tenure bill this spring.

She also cast the other major Republican candidate, businessman Rick Scott, as an outsider no one knows anything about.

Through March, Dockery has raised slightly more than $700,000 compared to almost $6.5 million for McCollum. Scott, who made hundreds of millions of dollars running the hospital chain Columbia/HCA, is on track to spend $25 million before the Aug. 24 primary.

Dockery knows money could be an issue.

"I realize as a candidate for governor, Paula Dockery is not a household name," Dockery said. "Yet."