A year ago Charlie Crist was a Republican, Marco Rubio was lying in the weeds in Miami and Bill McCollum was so far ahead in the governor's race he struck a pose and fell asleep.
What fun 2010 was. Sunshine State News came along at just the right time.
We had no idea last March that a staunchly conservative, anti-establishment revolution was about to turn Florida government upside down.
We certainly fit right in -- if not in the Capitol press corps, at least in the temper and tumult of the day.
From the beginning, every one of us on the Sunshine State News' eight-member staff believed we had a date with destiny, that March 2010 was an auspicious moment for a new publication -- and for thinking anew about the intersection of politics, business, conservative principles and journalism.
Sunshine State News was determined to depart from the left-leaning herd and find that untold story. We had energy and enthusiasm to burn and a lot of years in a dying newspaper culture. I think of it now as Pulitzer dreams and a Podunk reality -- each of us had a lot to get used to covering the Florida Legislature from an entirely new perspective.
This is where I'd like to thank the press corps for their warm and fuzzy welcoming hug. I'd like to, but can't. No smoochies from these folks.
We quickly discovered that our readers were hungry for our fresh look at topics and issues. Each week, it seemed, we got closer to where we wanted to be -- and set even greater goals for our news agency.
We had Gov. Charlie Crist's number in so many ways as he lunged toward new, more liberal relationships. As early as mid-March we wrote about his antics -- what the Obama hug really meant, his reluctance to cut the chord with his long-time protege and handpicked party chairman Jim Greer (Greer was indicted on felony charges ranging from money laundering to fraud), and -- my personal favorite story because we've got such great photos -- his friendship with Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein, now serving time in a federal prison. Rothstein threw Charlie a 52nd birthday party and gave him a wrapped and ribboned $52,000 check during the singing of "Happy Birthday."
Over many months, Rothstein's massive Ponzi scheme parlayed ill-gotten gains into campaign contributions to dozens of Florida politicians and both political parties, including $600,000 to the RPOF. The story was huge for us. We weren't first with it -- it's been around longer than Sunshine State News has. But we kept the fuse lit on the Rothstein-Crist connection and readers thanked us for it.
Charlie Crist's slam-bam-thank-you-ma'm treatment of the party he so professed to love a month earlier was almost as much fun to cover as Sen. Mike Bennett's April 29 playtime on the Senate floor, with a Senate computer, during a discussion of the ultrasound/abortion bill. The Bradenton Repub apparently got bored, checked his personal e-mail and sneaked a peak at scantily clad, nipple-baring beach babes. And got caught by our reporter and videographer Lane Wright, who was filming in the press gallery behind him. It was a Kodak moment seen on YouTube around the globe, with commentary in at least five languages.
While the mainstream media ate up the PR fluff Crist spooned out on his land deal with U.S. Sugar Corp., Sunshine examined the reality, the facts and figures, and reported the deal is "no-win" for taxpayers and the Everglades alike. Sure enough -- as we warned -- $197 million later, and a flat-broke South Florida Water Management District wants to lease out 18,000 acres of that land, not for Everglades restoration but to make $400,000 a year.
The 2010 legislative session itself? Fascinating to us newbies. Especially SB 6.
If it weren't for the SB 6 days of the 2010 Florida Legislature, I might have thought Wisconsin invented the concept of unions and teachers rippling their muscles by descending on a state Capitol. But no, Wisconsin wasn't first. Probably neither was Florida, but you couldn't prove it by me.
The bill that would have teachers' salaries tied to their students' test scores passed in the Republican-heavy Legislature after days of emotional testimony and throngs of angry teachers and union attorneys egging them on, amid seemingly endless teacher testimony.
And what timing. Right then, U.S. Senate candidate Crist was dying in the polls. One of the polls showed him 20 points behind his Republican primary opponent, Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, teachers were inundating Crist, begging him to veto SB 6, promising their support if he would. Never mind that he loved SB 6 in 2009. Who remembers a flip-flop, right? So, here was his chance, his out. He suddenly had a new fan base not from South Florida or North Florida but from all across the state -- teachers. He vetoed the bill, incurring the wrath of the legislative leadership.
At the same time, Marco Rubio, son of Cuban exiles and former speaker of the Florida House, was fully emerging. As Crist was flip-flopping his way toward the party door, Rubio grew more and more eloquent, more and more sure of his conservative principles -- the rock star of the 2010 election cycle. Rubio's ascendancy was dazzling and Sunshine State News was there to call it.
It was no longer a question of, Will Charlie defect? It was When will Charlie defect?
At Sunshine, we had a pool going -- a free lunch for the staffer who came closest to the date Charlie Crist bolts. Reporter Kevin Derby nailed it.
As the 2010 campaigns heated up, so did we at Sunshine State News. And so did a Republican newcomer to the gubernatorial race, Rick Scott. A millionaire. An outsider. The founder of Columbia Hospital Corp. and later CEO of Columbia/HCA, whose company became embroiled in a scandal over its business and Medicare billing practices.
Scott woke Bill McCollum up.
He also snubbed the media wolf pack in Tallahassee. It was as if a rabid animal had bitten the whole lot of them. They went for his throat.
Throughout the entire gubernatorial campaign, Scott with his let's-get-to-workisms was the Maytag repairman, the loneliest guy in town -- when he came to town, that is. Which wasn't often. The Capitol press corps paid zero attention to the wind beneath Scott's wings -- the burgeoning tea party movement in Florida and many in the business community who believed Florida government needs to run like a business. So he returned the sentiment. He never attended a single editorial board interview.
Of all the daily newspapers in Florida that make candidate endorsements, every one of them without exception recommended guber hopeful McCollum in the Republican primary, and Democrat Alex Sink in the general election.
At Sunshine, we were never sure if Scott's victories in both meant that newspapers don't have the clout they once enjoyed, or that voters just knew what they wanted -- they didn't need help deciding.
The most fun we had at Sunshine State News in 2010, without a doubt our greatest contribution to readers and to the election process, was the dozens of polls we commissioned. Over and over, week after week, they were either the most accurate polls taken, or very close.
On Oct. 5, nearly a month before the close general election, our Sunshine State News Poll conducted by Pennsylvania-based Voter Survey Service, predicted a Rick Scott victory over Alex Sink by 2 percentage points. In fact, our poll was off the mark in only one race in both elections: We predicted a squeaker in the GOP attorney general primary, with Jeff Kottkamp beating Pam Bondi.
In spite of our polls' accuracy, few of our colleagues in the press corps mentioned our results. We weren't to be trusted. We weren't one of them.
After a year in Tallahassee, we've seen the beauty of our exclusion.
We live in an entrepreneurial age, not an institutional one. The web, among other forces, has crushed much of the comparative advantage that big newspapers once enjoyed. Yes, newspapers are still alive and well in Florida, and I thank God for them. But we who deliver news without paper and ink have a calling. We want to be part of the stable of outstanding reporters who add a distinct voice to the public conversation in a new way.
I like that our staff at Sunshine believes the work itself matters more than where they work. And I hope that now we've survived the first year, we can give a unique signature to the job we do covering business and politics in the state of Florida.
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Columnist Nancy Smith can be reached at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.
