Few people in Florida politics displayed greater resolve and grace during the last five years than Weston Democrat Nan Rich.
Though Rich spent 12 years in the Florida Legislature -- eight of them in the Senate and the last two, 2010-2012, as its minority leader -- she likely will be remembered for her hard-slog-of-a-two-year run for governor against Charlie Crist, and the indefatigable spirit that never left her during any part of her Election 2014 campaign.
It was a profile in persistence and courage.
As Rich launched her campaign for governor in 2012, Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, expressed his admiration for her. "There is no squishiness about her," he told the press. "There is no ambiguity about her. She is a Democrat's Democrat."
What Gaetz meant was, her liberal positions -- on abortion, gun control, gay rights and health care, for example -- were unwavering.
Rich had grown up in Miami Beach and spent decades as a community activist working on such issues as children's health, public education and specific Jewish concerns.She had served as president of the National Council of Jewish Women, and as a President Bill Clinton-appointed board member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Despite her standing, when she termed out of the Legislature and declared her candidacy for governor, Rich was virtually unsupported by the Florida Democratic Party elite from the beginning of her run to the end.
In fact, Sunshine State News watched as party leaders virtually ignored her candidacy announcement in 2012, as if she somehow had insulted them by jumping into the race; and again in 2014 when they barred Emily's List from recommending her, and when they refused her repeated requests to debate Crist, and threatened her supporters for not acquiescing to party leadership's chosen candidate.
Democratic leadership argued Rich lacked name recognition; yet in the two years leading up to Election 2014, the party had never produced an ad for her, never given her more money than they had to, never stopped searching for a way to get her to throw in the towel.
Most of all, it was the debate with primary opponent Crist she wanted.
Rich was sure she could win going toe to toe with a candidate who stumbles over his policies and can't remember all the flip-flops. Party leaders and Crist's campaign team may have feared that too, because it never happened.
I am running for governor," Rich told supporters during the official opening of her Weston campaign office last May. "And I will be in this race, in case anybody had any doubts, I will be in this race until the end. And the end to me is to be elected governor of the state of Florida.
Through more than two years of adversity, buoyed by a strong core of grassroots supporters, Nan Rich hung on, moving daily from town to town, speaking mostly to small gatherings. She was as good as her word, never gave up, never changed a single position in her platform.
In the end, Crist -- with instant name recognition -- a Republican governor who turned independent in 2010, and who didn't join the Democratic Party until a year before the 2014 general election -- was the recipient of most of the Florida Democrats' fundraising efforts. He took the primary with 74 percent of the vote. But Rich had made her mark. Her principles were on display through her struggle, to be seen and heard by Florida voters.
And throughout the 2014 voting period -- long after Rich had conceded in the primary -- the appeal of those principles to the Democratic Party base presented a sharp contrast to Crist's willowy ambiguity.
Rich announced in January she will run for Marty Kiar's District 1 seat on the Broward County County Commission. "People know who I am now, know what I stand for," she said. "I know I'll have challengers, but I can't worry about them. I have a lot of experience I think will help Broward citizens. I'm going to just take the opportunities I get this year to talk to them, acquaint myself with all the needs of the community."
Rich Energizer-bunnied her way onto SSN's list of top-20 political personalities in the last five years, delivering along the way a powerful lesson that how candidates run a race may not get them a victory, but the principles that drive them count for something important.
(ABOUT THIS SERIES: Nan Rich is the 12th in a special anniversary series of 20 political personalities who loomed large since early 2010, when Sunshine State News set up shop in Tallahassee.Who else made the list? Click here to find out.)
Reach Nancy Smith atnsmith@sunshinestatenews.comor at 228-282-2423.
