Fresh out of entertainment of the pregnant pigs and dwarf tossing ilk, Florida nevertheless found a way to be Florida in 2014, weird and wondrous and indulging in our patented quirkiness, a Sunshine State trait that never fails to delight the national media.
Let's look back at a few of the year's events that probably could happen "only in Florida."
Jake Rush, Your Vampire Congressman?
If Jake Rush had a campaign adviser, he might want to sue.
Republican lawyer and former cop Rush, looking to bring down Congressman Ted Yoho in his rural North Florida district, did get plenty of attention wearing black contact lenses and dressing up as a vampire -- among other characters he liked to play.
He released a statement trying to explain: As a straight shooter, yes, I play and have played video games, role-playing games, board games, Yahtzee, Clue, and I have acted in dozens of theater productions."
OK, but only in Florida would a candidate for Congress think a hobby like that might work as a voter turn-on in the GOP primary.
Rush got in the race in February and started off with a bang.It all fell apart for him when photos emerged of his role-playing hobby, which ranged from laughable photos of the candidate as a superhero to more sinister characters, including one who talked about putting on my rape face.
All of a sudden Rush went from contender to pretender against Yoho. After the news and photos went public in April, all momentum was sucked out of his campaign. Rush never quite knew how to handle the negative publicity. Sometimes he embraced it, proudly claiming he was a geek and even appearing on Stephen Colberts show. (Colbert lampooned him mercilessly.) Other times, he insisted it was all the Yoho camp playing a dirty trick.
Rush won't get any curtain calls. Yoho drove a stake through his political ambitions in the August primary.
Ballot Box to Hat to City Council
What happens when city council candidates tie? In Mount Dora, about 30 miles north of Orlando, the race was decided by pulling one of the two names out of a hat.
And, yes, the story made national news as "only in Florida."
Incumbent Nick Girone and challenger Marie Rich each received 2,349 votes in the election. Officials performed a recount three times. A week before the "decision," Kelda Senior, city spokeswoman, said, "We already have the hat picked out and everything. Only in Florida, right?"
Don't look at it as a quaint idea from some small bumpkin municipality. It happens to be the law. Florida statute requires that if two people receive an equal amount of votes for a particular office, "such persons shall draw lots to determine who shall be elected to the office."
The drawing took place Dec. 2 on the lawn outside City Hall. The name that came out of the hat? Marie Rich.
Merry Everything: 'Let 'Em All in,' Says Florida
Headed to the Capitol this week? You might have to step around the competing junk piled up in the rotunda, masquerading as holiday displays. This year state officials chose avoiding headaches and lawsuits over class and common sense.
The New York-based Satanic Temple -- a group that says it doesn't really worship the devil, it just likes that name because it draws attention -- on Monday put up what the News Service of Florida and others have called "a crudely made falling-angel diorama."
Last year the Department of Management Services labeled the temple's display "grossly offensive" and turned it down. The group threatened legal action if the same thing happened this year. So, of course ...
And if you say yes to one, you have to say it to all. Apparently.
What we have, then, along with the Christmas tree, the Hanukkah menorah and the temple's display, are the Florida Prayer Network and International House of Prayer Tallahassee's nativity scenes, exhibits from the American Atheists of Tallahassee, the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and we have the work of South Florida political blogger Chaz Stevens, who for the second year put up a 6-foot stack of empty beer cans to represent Festivus, a sitcom-based festival "for the rest of us."
In what other state would officials cave like this? I'm guessing none. Gotta be only in Florida.
In Florida the Growler's a Howler
Florida's growler ban made the state even more famous -- or, is it infamous? -- in November when "CBS This Morning" tried to explain the logic behind denying the public 64-ounce, or half-gallon, beer containers.
Florida is trying protect the population from alcohol abuse, they said, by allowing super-sized beer sales in only quart and gallon containers. Oh, and kegs are OK, too.
In other words -- small OK, large OK, medium baaaad.
Somehow, the Florida Legislature, pressured by Big Beer, found a way in 2014 for all this to make sense. It doesn't in any other state, but that's why Florida is so, well, Florida.
The Pacific Legal Foundation and The Crafted Keg, a craft beer bar in Martin County have filed a civil rights lawsuit declaring the law not only stupid but unconstitutional. And legislators already have filed a bill ready for the 2015 session to put the logic and the law right.
Time will tell.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith.
