Tuesday, Sept. 5 is the day so many Floridians have waited for: when we find out if the candidates for our next governor will be — on the Republican side — a Schwarzenegger or a DeLay, or — on the Democratic side — a Bill Nelson or a DeLay.
The Republican race started out as the more interesting of the two, and while it hasn’t lost any drama, the Democratic one has my attention.
In the beginning, there were complaints that the two Democrats were too similar, too nice to each other on the campaign trail, and too boring. Then Rod Smith, a former state senator, found himself behind in the polls and pulled out the heavy ammo: U.S. Sugar.
When Smith headed the state’s agriculture committee, he evidently made some friends with money — the huge sugar industry, which Florida has spent years in court trying to get to clean up the Everglades. That money is now painting U.S. Rep. Jim Davis — a plodding, deliberate but pragmatic boy scout ala U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson — as a racist in a series of ads and phone calls because of a vote from 16 years ago.
In 1990, when Davis was himself a member of the Florida legislature, he voted against restitution for two black men who wrongfully served nine years on death row. Davis, a lawyer, explains but does not apologize for his vote. He says he listened to the evidence presented at the time and didn’t find enough to warrant a yes.
One of Smith’s U.S. Sugar-financed ads strung together newspaper quotes from both men regarding the injustice, attributed the sentiments to one of them, and hired an actor to speak them. That ad has since been pulled, but others have replaced it.
A few months back, when people asked who I supported in the primary, I told them I preferred Davis but would be happy with either man. I don’t tell them that anymore. Now I say that Rod Smith, who was also tied to the crooked and inept firm Jeb hired when he privatized aspects of Florida’s prison system, has pissed me off enough that I would consider voting for Charlie Crist — the Schwarzenegger Republican.
Crist has been under steady attack from his own trailing rival, Tom Gallagher. Gallagher, beset by ethics issues concerning — among other things — his practice of buying and selling insurance company stock while he was Florida’s Insurance Commissioner, narrowed his poll gap by painting Crist as a flaming liberal who supports gay marriage, wild government spending, and abortion. Yesterday, Gallagher’s attack pulled out all the stops, releasing court documents that show Crist gave up parental rights to a child in 1989.
The [Crist] campaign said the documents appear to be accurate. They showed that in 1989 he was identified as a child’s father by a woman whom Crist said he never had sex with and only vaguely knew socially.
Crist said he signed the consent form waiving all parental rights to avoid delaying or blocking the child’s adoption. People familiar with adoption cases say courts will seek consent forms from a man the mother identifies as a child’s father to avoid future claims.
The four pages of documents from the Pinellas County Circuit Court generally support Crist’s account of the case. The papers were included in an e-mail sent to dozens of Florida news organizations late Saturday under the name David Smith of Floridians for Truth.
Neither Smith nor the group could be further identified or reached by the Orlando Sentinel.
The funny thing is that if this smear is taken by voters at face value, it could dispel another whispering campaign: that Crist is gay.
Stay tuned. Expect the turnout tomorrow to be light but dedicated, and no matter what, to bring Florida that much closer to being shed of Jeb.
