The following is an excerpt from a column by Ed Kilgore in today’s New Republic Online:
The first thing you need to understand about Florida’s political climate is that its seemingly endless summer of Boom Times seems to be coming to a close. The vast migration to the state that caused its population to increase over 16 percent since the 2000 census seems to be winding down, and last year, shockingly enough, it actually lost population. The state’s economy is suffering from problems that are deeper than any business cycle: Its 2.7 percent drop in per capita personal income has pushed the state near the bottom of rankings by percent change of personal income data. State government and politics have followed suit, inaugurating a period of unhappy partisan and ideological wrangling with no clear outcome in sight.
Many of the troubles resemble the problems of Florida’s distant political cousins, Arizona and Nevada, both Sunbelt areas with significant retiree populations that have also been hit by an economic triple-whammy of rapidly declining housing values, reduced tourism, and eroded retirement savings. Not surprisingly, all three have developed volatile, toxic political climates this election cycle. (In Nevada, the only politician who is perhaps less popular than the Harry Reid is the Republican governor, Jim Gibbons. In Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, whom you’d expect to be riding high along with the GOP’s national renaissance, is scrambling to the right to survive a primary challenge by a defeated former congressman and radio talk show host, J.D. Hayworth.)
In addition, Florida has certainly suffered from the global economic slump because it is a major magnet for foreign investment. It also shares some of the structural problems of its otherwise very different Southern neighbors, particularly chronic underinvestment in public education. And when it comes to the fiscal and political consequences of a bad economy, Florida is one of just a handful of states with no personal income tax, which has made property-tax rates on steadily decreasing real estate values a red-hot issue (a billion-dollar deal that allowed the Seminole Indian tribe to expand its gambling operations was one of the only things that allowed legislators to balance the latest state budget).
So the question is, what does this mean for Charlie Crist, the erratic and heavily-tanned governor who is throwing the calculations of both major political parties into chaos? And what does it mean for Democrats, whose electoral future continues to depend, in part, on the whims of Florida’s diverse and fickle voters?
Read the rest at the New Republic Online.
