Though largely ignored by the state’s somnolent media, Floridians have a genuine alternative in November’s gubernatorial election.
Faced with a choice between a far left-leaning Democrat with a troubling three-year FBI probe hanging over his head and an inconsequential three-term Washington backbencher and Trump sycophant who rode into Congress on a right-wing Tea Party wave and whose candidacy until recently has been largely waged from a Fox News studio in the nation’s capital, voters in the Sunshine State could make history by electing the pragmatic and moderate Reform Party ticket on November 6th.
In doing so, Floridians would be repeating the example of Minnesota voters twenty years ago when they confounded that state’s smug political pundits by rejecting both major-party candidates and putting colorful insurgent outsider Jesse Ventura in the governor’s mansion.
History could repeat itself this year.
Given the increasingly partisan polarization of American politics, an almost juvenile red-and-blue view of the world that leaves moderates — the vast majority of the electorate — out in the cold, unrepresented by either party, Florida voters could change the course of politics in this country in one unexpected fell swoop.
That’s the magic of democracy.
Florida, moreover, is ripe for such an astonishing revolution at the ballot box. The major-party nominees for governor — both largely untested and lacking any experience at the state level or in the private sector — leave more than a little to be desired.
Unlike myself, both candidates have spent their entire adult lives feeding at the public trough.
Unlike my running mate, ex-Republican
State Senator and former chair of the Florida Public Service Commission Nancy Argenziano of Citrus County — a post from which she fought valiantly for ordinary Floridians against the powerful utility companies — neither has any experience at the state government level.
One of the most feisty, principled and independent-minded lawmakers in Florida history, Nancy spent more than a decade in the state legislature fighting for the state’s taxpayers and consumers. She knows where all the bodies are buried.
Backed by Bernie Sanders, the white-haired Santa Claus from Vermont with his heavy red sack full of pie-in-the-sky promises that would virtually bankrupt our fair state, Democrat Andrew Gillum — Tallahassee’s ceremonial mayor — will likely spend much of the remaining autumn campaign awkwardly explaining that he’s not really the target of the FBI investigation into corruption in his city. It’s an assertion corroborated by nobody but Gillum himself.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to explain how he’ll pay for his exorbitantly expensive agenda.
It really doesn’t matter how much his billionaire supporters — George Soros and Tom Steyer — spend to put him in office, Florida taxpayers will eventually foot the bill for his extravagant proposals.
Republican Ron DeSantis, a former congressman who worships at the altar of Trump — the strangest religion to ever appear on the American scene — is so far to the right that even some Florida conservatives have serious misgivings about his candidacy.
Having compiled an atrocious record on the environment during his three terms in Congress at a time when the Sunshine State desperately needs substantial federal help to deal with its growing Red Tide and toxic algae bloom infestation that seriously threatens all of Florida’s waterways, while championing the president’s hardline and mean-spirited policies on immigration in a state with one of the most culturally-diverse cities in the world, DeSantis is probably less familiar with his home state than any major-party nominee for governor in American history.
In a desperate attempt to portray himself as an environmentalist, the lackluster and simple-minded ex-congressman has recently embraced his opponent’s views on Florida’s water crisis, unfairly blaming the state’s farmers, particularly the badly-maligned sugarcane growers, for an issue that’s far more complex than either of them fully understand.
Every seemingly insoluble problem needs a scapegoat.
Never mind that agriculture contributes $120 billion a year to Florida’s economy and that most farmers are much better stewards of the land than many of their critics. It’s easy to blame the farmers.
Most importantly, this gubernatorial election shouldn’t be a referendum on Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
It’s about the kind of future Floridians want and deserve.
Few would disagree that following the controversial Bush-Gore 2000 presidential election this state became something of a laughingstock in American politics.
The Gillum and DeSantis nominations on August 28th gave the American people even more reason to chuckle.
On November 6th, Floridians could end the laughter and — as implausible as it might seem — become the model for the country.
The Sunshine State could pave the way for a brighter future, ending once and for all the highly partisan and divisive polarization of American politics, a destructive condition now sadly seeping into almost every aspect of our society and culture.
Standing against the increasingly corrupt and divisive duopoly, the Richardson-Argenziano Reform Party ticket — arguably representing two-thirds of the Florida electorate — could make it happen.
Maybe it’s time for a little magic from the middle.
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