Editorial

We're No. 1! Unfortunately, it's in job losses.

We're No. 2! But that's in home foreclosure rates.

We're buying U.S. Sugar and saving the Everglades! But we may lose $1.5 billion in future economic activity and 10,700 jobs.

Warren Buffet likes us! He really likes us! He only charged us $224 million to get in line for $4 billion in bonds to help the Cat Fund — on the three-to-four percent chance we'll need them.

While blame for job losses and the housing market can be spread nationwide, the trail for the Buffet and U.S. Sugar deals leads squarely to Tallahassee. Some are willing to give CFO Alex Sink a mini-pass on the Buffet decision because of her outspoken acknowledgment of dire problems with the Cat Fund. But Governor Charlie Crist was front and center on Sugar, and his decidedly confrontational attitude toward the insurance industry has been well documented, from the campaign trail, to his inauguration, to today.

During a February interview with The New York Times, while the state's economy continued its downward spiral, Crist chose to show his disdain once again by saying, “I still think that some in the property insurance industry in Florida have been outrageously greedy and have not conducted themselves with a corporate ethic that would make their mothers proud. How much money do they need?”

When he's not being confrontational, he comes across as curiously disinterested. His two appointments to the Citizens Property Insurance Corporation board, significant decisions in light of Florida's continuing homeowners' insurance troubles, were made some two weeks past the July 31st deadline, so late that his candidates were not in place for the new board's first meeting.

While newspaper editors and the occasional lawmaker have begun to take at least the occasional jab (the St. Petersburg Times called the Cat Fund deal “highway robbery”), Crist is almost Reagan-esque in warding off negativism among the masses. Perhaps that's because his schedule is looking increasingly like the popular former president's.

Crist's schedule shows he's taken off 41 weekdays in 19 months (from January 2006 through July 2008). That's almost double the number of days (22) that his predecessor, Governor Jeb Bush, took off during his first 19 months.

When he is working, Crist seems to be urgently needed in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region, where he grew up. He has scheduled trips to the Bay area for various meetings and public events over an additional 49 workdays. Serendipitously, these events take place at the beginning or end of the workweek, allowing Crist to spend the weekend in his hometown.

Maybe Florida is better off on his vacation days. While at work, he reversed his previous opposition to offshore oil drilling, saying the “pain at the pump was hurting Floridians too badly.” Although he has tried to punch up the economy by giving some previously vetoed infrastructure projects the go-ahead, we still have a $1.8 billion hole in the state budget, and the first consecutive three-year drop in the general revenue fund since the state began its formal revenue estimates in 1971.

The famous “Empty Chair” television ads attacking Democratic candidate Jim Davis that ran during Crist's 2006 gubernatorial campaign were viewed as inspired in their effectiveness. The ads, starring an unoccupied chair rolling along the streets of Washington, D.C., were so well received that the Florida Republican Party brought back the “empty chair” scenario in attacks on Democrats the following year.

Anyone interested in an anti-Crist campaign today might consider a pair of flip-flops amid a sea of red ink on the seat of that “empty chair.”