It’s now officially official. Alex Sink will not be running for governor again. It’s one and done after nearly being won and one more. The former banker and state CFO lost by less than 1 percent last time and there will be no next time.
That’s politics–as well as candidate variables and electorate dynamics. But it’s also something else: misleading.
Regardless of Scott’s obscenely self-funded gubernatorial campaign–and despite it being an anti-incumbent party year–that election was absolutely Sink’s to lose. And she surely did. Her opponent was an awkward, charisma-challenged outsider with unconscionable connections to Medicare fraud. And this is Florida! His rhetorically shifty deposition from hell was the only political ad she needed to run.
But hers was an amateurish campaign–right through taking a campaign aide’s call during a debate. She spoke at UCF and misidentified it. Were not the Democratic alternatives unknown Nan Rich, all-too-well-known Charlie Crist and septuagenarian Sen. Bill Nelson, the Sink speculation would not have had legs as long as it did. Word was she wanted to run–but knew she couldn’t raise the money. That had been less of an issue in her CFO days.