Politics and governing should never be confused. One is how a particular Party manages a city or state; the other is how the other Party distorts success and uses lies and deception to instill fear in supporters to win votes. Politics has always been a rough game, but it has evolved into a blood sport where itis winner-take-all at any cost, even opponents’ lives. If you think that is hyperbole, ask Charlie Kirk’s widow or check the tally of assassination attempts on President Donald Trump. The Florida governor’s race is a great example of the dichotomy of governing and politics.
Florida is a bad example for term limits, as it has been blessed with the last two governors, Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis, who performed incredibly well yet had to vacate their seats after two terms. These men and the Republican Party have made Florida into a shining example of how a state can and should be run. It has become a magnet for people fleeing blue states like New York, Illinois, Michigan, and California.
Unfortunately, as is often the case when people move from one state to another, they take the old policies they escaped with them. This is so irrational that it’s hard to explain logically. This is exactly what we are seeing in the Governor’s race. It should be a no-contest win for Byron Donalds, but the polls say otherwise. The Democrats called on an old, and I do mean old, star to plead their case for putting a Democrat in the corner office in Tallahassee. It was painful and exasperating to watch Bill Clinton make his case.
Florida, like California, is a beautiful state with a plethora of natural resources. Unfortunately for California, the similarities end there. Florida is an incredibly well-run, efficient state. Crime is down, the economy is booming, education scores are up, and it still has no income tax. The state’s entire budget is less than New York’s, that is, the city’s, not the state’s. With the state running so well, why would anyone want to vote for the other side and upset the momentum? That is where politics comes into play.
Bill Clinton cited three reasons why Florida needs to turn to the Democrats, and frankly, each one angered me more. The first, of course, was Trump. Everything in the Democrat world has to be brought back to Trump. Using Trump is synonymous with saying we have no alternatives. The next was divisiveness and how the country is broken and divided. Florida is far from broken or divided. With 50% white, 20% Black, 10% Hispanic, and even 2% Native American, Florida is about as homogeneous as you can get, and most voted for a Republican Governor.
The final argument made little sense in the context of the Governor’s race, but Clinton was grasping at straws and looking worse than Biden at The Debate. Islamaphobia. What does that have to do with the race other than the radical Islamists targeting Tampa as the Islamist capital of the “new” America? Clinton was trying to equate America’s fear and angst for radical Islamists with a hatred of Muslims. Maybe Clinton does not know the difference, but most thinking Americans do, and again, what is the connection and reason for the topic even being discussed in this forum? There is none other than using it to magnify the fear factor.
This race should be a runaway, and putting a Black Republican in the Governor’s office is another nail in the divisiveness coffin.
Author’s Note: Graphics created by Grok AI. Grok’s comments about the images: The header sets Florida’s bright, efficient success against the deliberate darkness of political messaging. The sunlit skyline, palms, and arriving families represent the real outcomes of competent Republican governance—low crime, booming economy, rising education scores, no income tax—while the aging figure under the storm cloud captures Bill Clinton’s attempt to recast that prosperity as division, Trump obsession, and manufactured fear. The light stays dominant because the facts of how the state is actually run refuse to be eclipsed by the rhetoric.
