A red tide swept over Florida and most of the nation this week as Republicans romped in an Election Day repudiation of Washington that trickled down to Tallahassee, leaving Democrats singing the blues.
The GOP kept a U.S. Senate seat by beating an incumbent governor who had appeared untouchable a year ago, elected a governor, easily won all three seats on the Cabinet, knocked off four Democratic incumbents in Florida's congressional delegation, picked up five seats in the state House and two in the state Senate.
Scott by a hair
The only bad news for Republicans on Tuesday was that they had to wait until Wednesday to find out they'd run the table.
The race for governor was the closest in modern Florida history, with Democrat Alex Sink getting a boost from voters' discomfort with Scott. Polls showed that while they were going to vote for a lot of Republicans, Florida voters had reservations about the thin, bald guy who barged into their living rooms every three minutes this summer proposing that we get to work. Scott's past connection to a health care company that paid $1.7 billion in fines for bilking the government gave voters enough concern that he barely was able to beat Sink, despite spending nearly as much to get himself elected.
OK, not really, he only spent $73 million, which amounts to just $28.01 for every vote he got, a bargain really, but enough to make it the most expensive governor's race in the state's history, too.
Scott comes in as something of a mystery, having never held political office, and taken the approach that the only good news coverage was no news coverage. He did a couple of debates -- with the most memorable moment of either of them being when he busted Sink for getting some coaching by text message from the sidelines.
Like a kid complaining to the teacher that the girl in the next desk is copying, Scott came off as a bit petty in making Sink Cheats the theme of the last couple ofweeks of his campaign, but it was a fitting end to a negative campaign in a particularly negative year.
In the end, Scott got just enough votes and so now must get to work.
Rubio gets it right, Charlie Crist exits stage left
Marco Rubio's win in the U.S. Senate race was called before voters at some Panhandle polling places even got back to their cars. About 41 seconds after the polls closed, networks were declaring Rubio the winner and, just like that, Charlie Crist, rising political star who was on a vice presidential short list two years ago, has plenty of January free time.
Rubio heads into the Senate as a standard-bearer of the fiscal far right and the tea party movement, though because some of his compatriots didn't win (the Not a Witch Lady, for example), Rubio still goes in as a member of the minority party. While it may seem that would make him less of a star because he won't be in power, it likely could increase his visibility because he'll immediately become an articulate and telegenic Sunday show counterpoint to the Obama administration.
Crist's gambit, to leave the Republican Party and run as an independent when he figured out that he couldn't legitimately out conservative Rubio, and to seek middle-of-the-road and Democratic voters didn't pay off, in part because the actual Democrat in the race, Rep. Kendrick Meek, declined to drop out. Meek's quixotic effort to convince voters that Crist was a Republican in new Democrat clothing also didn't pay off, as he and Crist split the moderate and liberal vote.
The election ends, though likely only temporarily, Crist's remarkable political rise. It was remarkable not as much for how far he went, but for the manner in which he did it, shape-shifting politically through the years, changing his outlook on various issues dramatically as he sought -- and often found -- the cresting political wave just in time to give it a ride. Excoriated by true believers as a flip-flopper, Crist in the last couple of years had a refreshing embrace of his back-and-forth world view. "Things change," Crist said a few times when asked how he could change his position so much.
In many ways, Crist's willingness to flip-flop, or to respond to the whims of "The People," that he so often reminded critics he served, undercut his ability to do the other thing he truly wanted to do -- to walk both sides of the political aisle as a raging moderate, willing to listen to people on either side when the idea was good. It made for a couple of great commercials this year -- Crist spelling out the word American in red and blue letters, and Crist walking on a beach straddling the line in the sand drawn by the two parties. But ironically, despite his past ability to read political tea leaves, it was the wrong year to take a moderate stance. The conservative wave crashed over Crist's head and spit him up on the beach. Also caught in that wave was Meek, who got kicked by the struggling Crist and drowned.
Will the last Senate Democrat take down the Lawton Chiles painting
Seeing Democrats lose five seats in the state House isn't really that surprising in such a big Republican year -- after all, in the first big Democratic year of 2006 (when Democrats took control of Congress) they had gained seven, so this in a way just reverses most of those gains.
And to lose two seats in the 40-member Senate doesn't really seem like that big of a deal either, except when you consider that the Democrats in the Senate are getting dangerously close to single digits. The old joke about holding caucus meetings in a phone booth wasn't ever really very funny, but it's even less so when it's actually a possibility.
Incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos stated the obvious on Friday when he said that the Senate is moving to the right and will be the most conservative "in your history."
Other electoral passings of note
Members of Florida's congressional delegation who said involuntary goodbyes this week -- all Democrats -- were Rep. Allen Boyd, beaten by Steve Southerland; Rep. Alan Grayson, beaten by Daniel Webster; Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, beaten by Sandy Adams and Rep. Ron Klein, beaten by Allen West. The Republican wave also carried to victory two other Republicans who held on to open GOP-held seats that the Democrats had targeted: Dennis Ross, who will replace new Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and David Rivera who takes the seat vacated by Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
Perhaps the most far-reaching result of this year's Florida election may be the passing of Amendments 5 and 6, which is supposed prevent Republicans from protecting their seats for themselves when they do redistricting in 2012.
If it actually does, Democrats may be able to take back some of those seats in the Legislature before they're all gone.
Erasing more of the Crist years
As if sending Crist into political oblivion wasn't enough, Republicans did a bit of piling on this week, calling a special session for later this month to override some of Crist's vetoes from earlier this year. The GOP has super majorities in both chambers now and can override to its full content, but Haridopolos and incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon said they'll exercise some restraint and not revisit the most controversial bills the governor vetoed, like hotly contested teacher merit pay legislation.
