Personality counts in Florida race, and Sink has some
By Gary Reese
June 4, 2009 — Alex Sink was born in Mt. Airy, the North Carolina town that inspired the iconic TV sitcom “The Andy Griffith Show." This is more than trivia. Sink, a woman with a man’s name, speaks and acts the part of the down-home country girl, with her folksy accent and unassuming demeanor. And it’s her personality than could prove a key in the Democrat’s expected showdown with presumptive Republican nominee Bill McCollum in the 2010 race for governor in Florida. Both Sink and McCollum are generally expected to skate through their parties’ primaries. So what’s in a speaking accent? Lots. To win, Sink must appeal to the Democratic Party’s voting base, which is urban liberals and blacks, and also to white, rural, conservative North Florida Democrats, plus newly registered independents, many of them young women. Though voter-registration trends are tilting towards the Democrats, Florida is enough of an even split between Democratic and Republican voters that the personal appeal and biographies of the two candidates could decide things. McCollum is the known commodity; the embodiment of the GOP status quo. The current state attorney general and a former Central Florida congressman for 20 years, he will be making his fourth try at statewide office. He lost US Senate bids in 2000 and 2004 before winning the race for attorney general in 2006. He first sprouted a big name for himself by helping to engineer the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton in the US House in the late ‘90s. By embracing McCollum – state Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson was muscled out of the race by the state GOP – the Republicans are banking on the power of name ID, and perhaps whistling past the graveyard by backing a “two-time loser.” At a time when the Republicans are desperately looking for ways to reinvent themselves for voter consumption, the 64-year-old McCollum is more of the same. He doesn’t project a resentful, threatening presence, a la the Newt Gingrich school of Republicanism, but his favorite-uncle personality can come across as stiff and mechanical. McCollum’s campaign knows this, as they know that the temper of the times is tilting towards more ethnic and gender diversity in politics. That’s why he has already announced that a McCollum administration would be about “inclusiveness” and “the environment” – both traditional Democratic buzzwords. And so we have the modern GOP’s dilemma: How to shed its old, unpopular skin, and at the same time offer an alternative view to the Democrats. But the biggest challenge to Republican supremacy in Tallahassee is Sink. She is an intriguing mix of aw-shucks mannerisms and superwoman achievement. She once ran Bank of America’s Florida operations, and is now the state’s chief financial officer. That’s a state cabinet position with big and complex fiscal responsibilities. It’s arguably the second-most important office in Tallahassee; above that of the largely ceremonial position of lieutenant governor.
The combination of her career resume and her disarming ways makes her a moving target for McCollum. Already the Republicans are trying to hang a millstone of blame around her neck for Florida’s economic and fiscal woes. She’s mismanaged affairs as CFO, they say, and she made her fortune as one of those greedy, reckless bankers. Don’t look for these charges to stick. Voters will know that the sour economy has nothing to do with her administrative ways in the state capital. And McCollum has ties to banking himself; he long served on the congressional committee that oversees banks. He also later lobbied for the mortgage industry.
Sink also has shown past prowess at raising money. She’s married to Bill McBride, the 2002 Democratic nominee for Florida governor. And the couple is known for having raised substantial cash for Democratic candidates both before and after McBride’s unsuccessful bid against Gov. Jeb Bush. This skill could prove especially key in times when money is in short supply all over. And yet McCollum has room to define both himself and Sink. He may be old hat to Florida political insiders, but one poll showed that one-third of voters still have no opinion of him. (Nearly half had no opinion of Sink.) McCollum could also benefit by being on the same “ticket” as Gov. Charlie Crist, who is enormously popular as he runs for US Senate. Crist has been out in front of nearly every Republican in America for angling to the political center. Now McCollum must find a way to join Crist at the hip to win centrist and independent voters, while at the same time inspiring the GOP base that so loathes Crist’s liberal Republican ways. Sink’s high-wire act will be to come across as the bright and accomplished woman next door, and not as a bureaucrat who talks like a hick. Both McCollum’s and Sink’s camps already are claiming their opponents have no charisma. A wildcard factor could be the potential candidacy of Republican state Sen. Paula Dockery against McCollum in the GOP primary. Although she would stand little chance of toppling him, the grassroots populist Dockery potentially could damage McCollum by portraying the appeal of a new girl on the block to challenge this established good ole boy. Sink might take that baton from Dockery in the general election campaign. Aside from money, the race might boil down to circumstances outside the control of either Sink or McCollum – developments on the national political scene. President Obama’s ambitious agenda for domestic reform is bound to separate America more into competing political camps than it already is. The question is which side will boast the most and the most passionate followers. As disengaged as most voters are from the political process, they are more removed from the goings-on in Tallahassee than they are from those in Washington. National events are bound to trickle down South. (Obama won the supposed red state of Florida last year.) That makes predicting a Sink-McCollum race problematic right now. Yet this much is certain: Political trends in America and demographic trends in Florida mean that the easy Republican victories for Florida governor in the last three elections aren’t likely to repeat themselves in 2010.
|
