Julie Delegal
Former state senator Dan Gelber’s got it. So does my fellow Context Florida columnist, Susan Clary. And if you believe what you read, Florida Internet publisher Peter Schorsch suffers from the same contagion. It’s called Charlie Fever, and if left unchecked, may cause political blindness.
Don’t get me wrong. Florida’s newly announced once-and-future gubernatorial candidate, Charlie Crist, may be exactly what the state Democratic Party needs to get back on its still-wobbly legs. But if we’re not careful to grow this infatuation into a strong, healthy love, the newly minted Democrat could have the party tripping over its own flip-flops, and falling flat on its face. Again.
By way of illustration, Crist recently stubbed a figurative toe at the Florida Education Association’s convention, where sources say he was loudly booed for embracing former Gov. Jeb Bush’s brand of “education reform.”
In three short years, teachers have forgotten how Crist rejected linking high-stakes tests to teacher evaluations. Memories of the romance of spring 2010 all but evaporated when Crist mentioned the name “Bush.”
Former St. Pete Times journalist Jon East, who now works for a school privatization organization, says the move was calculated to put some political distance between Crist and the teachers union, perhaps to sway moderates and independents who respond to the idea of “reform.”
But it’s more than that.
Crist, ever the pragmatist, knows what Barack Obama and every other experienced politician knows. You can’t fight a tidal wave. And the education-reform narrative that Bush & friends have developed since 1998 has already washed into every corner of political life.
Hollywood has produced not one, not two, but three feature-long propaganda pieces to sell high-stakes-testing-plus-privatization, and though the research throws every bit of that approach into question, the governor’s race is simply not the place to talk about legitimate research.
The question is how to keep what’s effective, according to research, and discard the rest as we work to improve Florida’s public schools. And the first answer is that we can’t do any of it with a right-wing ideologue in the governor’s mansion.
There’s an old saying about partisan politics: conservatives fall in line, while liberals fall in love. And despite the protestations of liberals who have already caught Charlie Fever and fallen in line, the courtship for most Florida Democrats has only just begun.
Democrats all over the state need a metaphorical “long walk on the beach” with Charlie Crist. His primary opponent, Nan Rich, should be sent along to chaperone — to help guide some very serious conversations about our future. Her voice is indispensable in helping Democrats decide which “lines in the sand” will be more important than others in this race.
We need to see our purported bearer-of-hope in person, early, and often, and we need to hear some spirited discussion between Tan and Nan — the kind that will unite us and get us out to vote after the primary.
Make us love you, Charlie Crist.
