Gator Politickin'

I know I promised to get away from the political this week but I figured this warranted a mention... We have 7 candidates for the position of County Tax Collector. That's right, SEVEN. You gotta wonder why that post is so desirable. Our previous tax collector passed away quite unexpectedly and, within a month, we had a number of people vying for the post, all of whom are registered Republicans. We are a strong Republican and conservative county, Democrats and liberals/progressives are definitely in the minority here.

You may have heard that we have an interesting Senate race here in Florida. It was boring for awhile until Marco Rubio started gaining ground on Charlie Crist. Crist just happens to be our governor and thought he could slide into a nice cushy Senate job after term limits ended his stay at the Governor's Mansion (why should governors have mansions anyway? Jerry Brown of California didn't live in one the last time he was governor and I actually like that guy. But I digress... as usual). Anyway, once Rubio looked like he was going to beat Crist in the primary, Crist had an epiphany and decided he was actually an Independent and not a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn't matter that he stated a month before that he was not going to run as an Independent if he lost the primary.

Technically, he didn't lie. He just didn't wait long enough to actually lose the primary.

Yet that didn't leave Rubio unopposed. There are two other Republicans running for the nominations. Two guys I barely heard of, have seen no ads for, and who I don't expect to pick up much of the vote.

On the Democratic side of that Senate race we have Kendrick Meek, son of Carrie Meek, who retired as a US Congresswoman in 2003. Her seat was taken over by, you guessed it, Kendrick. Now, Kendrick wants to move up. Unfortunately, he is being challenged by one Jeff Greene, a real estate billionaire, who may just beat him and a couple of lesser candidates who haven't got a prayer. In reality, neither Greene nor Meek have a snowball's chance in Key West of beating either Crist or Rubio. But money will be spent, coalitions made, favors will be traded, and who knows what the future might bring?

In the Governor's race, Bill McCollum thought he would coast into the Republican nomination. A widely respected Republican here, he didn't worry about the no names challenging him. Uh oh! A self-made multi-millionaire has made a good run in recent months in spite of a connection to a Medicare fraud scandal with HCA, of which he was CEO at the time. We are now being inundated with attack ads from both sides and mud is flying everywhere. Except, in Florida, we don't have mud. We have swamps so we have "muck" instead.

And you folks thought Floridians were laid back and easy going...

I think I'll vote for anyone whose name I do not recognize. And, beginning tomorrow, I swear to all my constituents, I will not mention politics for the rest of the week.