The 2012 presidential race may be over, but the 2014 Florida gubernatorial race is starting to heat up. Brace yourself. Given the passion of Florida politics, the next two years should provide quite a spectacle.
This month, the highly respected Quinnipiac University poll showed Gov. Rick Scott isn't very popular among Floridians, with only 36 percent thinking he's doing a good job. That's down five points from May, when 41 percent gave Scott the thumbs up. Scott's low popularity comes as no surprise. Plenty of voters, including a large number of Republicans, still are scratching their heads over how this political neophyte could win election, particularly since the health care company he once ran pleaded guilty to the biggest Medicare fraud on record.
The $70 million of his own money that Scott spent on his campaign helped him win. So did support from tea partiers, who backed Scott in the GOP primary over the highly competent Bill McCollum, then Florida's attorney general. Democratic challenger Alex Sink did her part for Scott's victory by running an inept campaign.
Given Scott's poll ratings, Democrats think they can regain the governorship for the first time in 16 years, and a growing number of Republicans are worrying they might be right. That has some party stalwarts wondering whether the GOP would be better off with a candidate other than Scott.
Meanwhile, former Gov. Charlie Crist has registered as a Democrat. That was expected, considering Crist gave Barack Obama a ringing endorsement from the podium of the Democratic convention. Never one to miss a political opportunity, former Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat Crist may yet resurrect a once-promising political career by riding a donkey back to the governor's mansion.
Crist won election to the Florida Senate in 1992 from the St. Petersburg area. Among his legislative initiatives was a bill to reprise chain gangs for prison inmates. This won him the sobriquet "Chain Gang Charlie," and endeared him to the law-and-order hardliners of the Republican base.
In 1998, Crist launched what appeared to be a quixotic run at the U.S. Senate seat occupied by the unbeatable Bob Graham. I interviewed Crist during the campaign. With his trademark cheery and confident demeanor, he kept insisting the conventional wisdom was wrong and that he could, indeed, oust Florida's most popular politician ever.
I remember thinking, "This guy is either really dumb or delusional," but I confess now I was wrong on both counts.
The savvy Crist knew exactly what he was doing. The campaign gave him statewide name recognition and a broad funding and volunteer network, plus the support of party leaders. Two years later, Crist was elected Education Commissioner, and then attorney general. The race against Graham, in which Crist faced certain defeat, laid the groundwork for his meteoric rise to the governorship.
Crist's normally sound political instincts, however, lapsed for a moment in 2009. During a presidential tour touting the federal government's stimulus package, Crist hugged Barack Obama, a gesture caught on camera. The "hug" marked the beginning of the end of Crist's career as a Republican, as the GOP conservative wing turned from Crist to Marco Rubio in the 2010 Senate race.
In a sensible world, McCollum in 2010 would have been the GOP nominee for governor. He would have crushed Sink in the general election, and at this point been well on his way to re-election. Of course, had Crist opted to run for a second term as governor rather than seeking election to the U.S. Senate, he'd probably be finishing a successful second term right now.
Regardess of their politics, McCollum and Crist both have demonstrated they are intelligent men and competent leaders. Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, "There are no second acts in American lives," but maybe there should be. A McCollum-Crist gubernatorial race would give Floridians something to think about.
Kingsley Guy's column appears every other Sunday. Email him at Harborlite3@bellsouth.net.
