By George, Sheldon Kicking Over Running for Governor

The Buzz is reporting that DCF chief George Sheldon is considering running for governor as an independent. Sheldon has had a distinguished career. He served as a legislative aide to Reubin Askew, served in the Legislature and was deputy attorney general under Bob Butterworth. He later served under Butterworth at DCF before raised to his current position by Gov. Charlie Crist.

But Sheldon has not done well when he has sought statewide elected office. He ran against Crist to be state education commissioner in 2000 and lost by 7 percent of the total vote. Despite being Butterworths heir apparent, Sheldon placed a distant third behind Buddy Dyer and Scott Maddox when he ran for the Democratic attorney general nomination in 2002, coming ten percentage pointsbehind the other two candidates in the final vote.

Sheldon, to his credit, says thatit is very late to be kicking over launching a campaign and, as he intends to put off making a decision until the end of thelegislative session, time is clearly not on his side if he chooses to jumpin. He would have toraise funds, hire astaff,find a way to make the ballot (a minor party nomination?) andget his message out there while still trying to find a way toconnectbetter with Floridians than he did in 2000 and 2002.

The question is not whether Floridians can picture George Sheldon as governor. He has been an important player on Florida's political stage for decades and is certainly qualified. But picturing Floridians electing Sheldon as an independent in 2010 is a different matter altogether.