After steering a moderate course through the gubernatorial election campaign, would Democrat Alex Sink make a hard left turn as governor?
Sink's post-election transformation from a middle-of-the-road Democrat to an Obama-style progressive could make one of the most intriguing political turnabouts of the year, and a close look at her position papers reveals a possible roadmap.
Superficially speaking, Sink stresses her business experience at Bank of America and her reform-oriented agenda as the state's chief financial officer. Her TV ads and campaign appearances burnish an image of nonpartisanship and moderation.
That airbrushed strategy, twinned with fierce attacks on Republican rival Rick Scott's own business record, has enabled Sink to avoid the political pitfalls that have engulfed Democratic officeholders this year. Sink presents herself as a new Democrat somehow different to the dysfunctional rabble in Washington, D.C.
The effect can be intoxicating. After viewing a recent Sink-Scott debate, incoming state Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, came away thinking, "Gosh, she sounds more conservative than I am."
But beyond the pleasant sound bites about reforming government and reining in spending, Sink's core principles appear to be more Keynesian than centrist.
ADDING UP THE NUMBERS
Undergirding Sink's agenda for reviving Florida's stagnant economy is the belief that more, not less, government spending is the key to prosperity.
In just three policy initiatives listed on her website, Sink would spend more than $12 billion in public funds. (Price tags are estimates from legislative budget data.)
- On transportation: Supports extending high-speed rail line to Miami. Price tag: $9.2 billion.
- On education: Wants to boost K-12 spending to 61 percent of general revenues and bring pre-K outlays to the national average. Price tag: $2.4 billion.
- On state employees: Favors raises for state workers by bringing payroll expenditures per resident to the national average. Price tag: $575 million.
Nowhere does Sink say how she would pay for these ventures, and her campaign staff did not respond to Sunshine State News' request for comment. But Sink stands by her claim that she will save the state $700 million in the first year of her governorship.
If the numbers don't add up, that hasn't fazed the Tallahassee press corps, which has thus far given Sink a pass on her fuzzy math.
Such inattention to details helped grease Charlie Crist's ride to the governor's office in 2006. A consummate politician, Crist deftly manipulated public opinion into believing he really was all things to all people.
Campaigning as an honest heir to Jeb Bush's legacy, Crist went wobbly after taking office. Lurching leftward on social and fiscal issues, the man once known as "Chain Gang Charlie" eventually tacked himself right out of the Republican Party.
Will Alex Sink serve Gov. Charlie Crist's "second term"? It's hardly a far-fetched proposition.
Sink, who sits with Crist and Attorney General Bill McCollum as trustees on the State Board of Administration, has at times behaved more like a feckless bureaucrat than a hard-nosed businesswoman. On Sink's watch, the SBA's ill-advised flier on a New York real-estate deal went belly up and lost the state pension fund its entire $266 million investment.
The CFO also passed the buck when she granted waivers to felons to sell insurance. And, along with Crist, she has done little to resolve the financial problems faced by Citizens Insurance -- a quasi-public concoction that skews the private market and puts Florida taxpayers on the line for hundreds of billions of dollars in liability.
On "social justice" issues ranging from voting rights for felons -- again with the felons -- to adoption by gay partners, Sink and Crist are ideological soulmates.
As governor, Sink would add cosmetic layers of bureaucracy like an "Accountability Office." Her professed desire to bring Florida up to "national averages" on public-employee pay and other public spending indices belies a penchant for more government "solutions."
These are standard bromides for Democrats, and Sink has always been a party partisan. Even before she assisted husband Bill McBride's unsuccessful campaign against Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002, she was thoroughly enmeshed in the Democratic machine.
Adapting quickly to Florida's political scene after growing up in small-town North Carolina, Sink honed her fund-raising skills and growing contact lists to get Democrats elected. In 1998, she was mentioned as a possible running mate for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Buddy MacKay.
In another parallel with the "independent" Crist, Sink echoes the current governor's weasel words on Obamacare and stimulus spending. Yet neither politician can have it both ways.
Though Sink has scrubbed references to the president from her campaign website, she cannot run from her 2008 declaration on CNBC:
"Barack Obama has the right message and the right solutions for turning our economy around right here in Florida."
Obama returned the compliment, urging party faithful to do "whatever it takes to make sure that Alex Sink is the next governor of Florida."
NO TAX INCREASES ... MAYBE
For campaign purposes, Sink says she will oppose any tax increases. Yet the former banker supports the Obama administration's health-care law that would increase Florida's Medicaid costs by $1.4 billion a year, according to the state Agency for Health Care Administration. Those costs will only exacerbate the state's budget crunch and further diminish the K-12 funding gap she bemoans.
In setting her agenda, Sink owes a heavy debt to trial lawyers and unions, particularly the Florida Education Association. These two groups, directly and through the Democratic Party, have made a multimillion-dollar down payment on a Sink governorship -- and neither tort reform nor education reform is on their priority lists.
Facing a Republican-controlled Legislature that will likely be more conservative than the 2010 model, a "progressive" Gov. Sink could end up being more Jimmy Carter than Charlie Crist -- tilting at windmills and spinning her wheels.
And don't let that honeyed Southern drawl fool you. Sink can dig in politically and play hardball.
"She doesn't strike one as the type of politician who will let the opposition control her," observes Seth McKee, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, says Sink as governor would be "in a difficult position" on the fiscal front, but might take a stand on "social/moralistic" issues such as abortion, with the likely return of the vetoed ultrasound bill and the prospect of a measure banning abortions altogether.
Sink also could try to block expected proposals to expand school vouchers and school-choice programs, as well as a revival of the Crist-vetoed teacher pay and tenure bill.
"She will feel pressure from the teachers' union," Smith said. "Like Crist, she will look critically on that."
If both houses obtain veto-proof majorities, Gov. Sink will be marginalized and ineffective. If those legislative margins fall short, Floridians should brace for bitter, hyper-partisan stalemates on any number of issues, including legislative and congressional redistricting.
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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
