Mike Haridopolos Will Miss 'Being in the Arena'

The Florida Senate said goodbye to Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, with a bipartisan tribute to his conservative beliefs that included the unveiling of his official portrait, which will be hung in the Senate gallery.

With his wife, Stephanie, and children Alexis, Hayden and Reagan at his side, Haridopolos said after 12 years in the state Legislature, the last two as Senate president, he will miss being in the arena.

The comment is a reference to a quote from U.S. President Teddy Roosevelts Citizenship In A Republic speech madeat the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910.

Visitors to Haridopolos Senate presidents office are greeted by a phrase from the speech.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood ...

Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said legislation that has allowed more than 30 health care clinics to open across the state as an affordable alternative to emergency room care is part of Haridopolos legacy.

These are actual clinics that are up and running, Negron said.

The event drew Gov. Rick Scott, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, CFO and former Senate President Jeff Atwater, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and former presidents John W. Vogt and Ken Pruitt, a Republican who is now the property appraiser in St. Lucie County.

A video tribute included appearances by former Gov. Jeb Bush, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Miami, who served in the state House with Haridopolos, and Tom Feeney, president of Associated Industries of Florida, a former U.S. congressman and House speaker when Haridopolos joined the House in 2001.

To make room in the gallery for Haridopolos' portrait, the portrait of Herbert Jackson Drane, a Democrat from Lakeland who served as senate president in 1913, will be moved to the Old Capitol.

Drane, a newspaper editor who sold real estate and grew citrus, would also served in the U.S. Congress and be appointed to the Federal Power Commission in 1933 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.