Democratic gubernatorial nominee
Jim Davis has been lagging in the
polls about 15 points down with 6 weeks to Election Day. But then a series of events have happily conjoined to create a perfect storm for Davis.
Follow me to a discussion of the elements of this storm...
Until the recent
resignation of Republican Congressman Mark Foley (FL-16) the campaign of Democratic candidate
Jim Davis looked to be DOA. Davis had not been seen on the air since the primary election on September 5th. His Republican opponent, state Attorney General Charlie Crist has been on the air nonstop since then. The only buzz for Davis after the primary was his bold selection of his LT Governor running mate Col. Daryl Jones, US Air Force Reserves as the first African American nominee for LG. After that, Crist was winning the news cycle every day. Davis went from inside the margin of error to 15 points down.
The recent resignation of Republican Congressman Mark Foley (FL-16) was the first element of the storm to appear. Besides the general level of bad news this represented for Republicans in Florida, it also played into something else. Or several somethings else. The R candidate for Governor, Charlie Crist, has long been whispered to be gay. Since the Foley story broke, Crist has had to deny that he and Foley were roommates when they served together in the Florida Senate in the mid 1990's. Crist called the Foley affair "tragic and terrible. What can you say?" Also complicating the situation, Crist, Florida's Attorney General, has stumbled a bit over his role in the investigation of Foley.
Meanwhile, Jim Davis has been making his own news. He rolled out his plan to revamp Florida's broken public education system "Achieve Florida". Next, Davis announced (finally) his first two TV spots. And on Tuesday, Davis revealed his $1 Billion Property Tax Relief Plan. Davis has clearly won the daily news cycles in Florida since the beginning of this week.
On the subject of polls, a recent poll shows that Davis has the opportunity to not only win over most of the undecideds, but also to win back some of the soft support for Crist. The poll shows the Davis campaign more closely aligned with the majority of the voters on each of the top three issues in the state. Those issues are education, property taxes and property insurance. The first post primary Davis TV spots are on education and property tax relief. A property insurance TV spot and policy plan are expected to follow.
Jim Davis represents change for the better for Florida. Charlie Crist has run his whole campaign to "stay the course" set by term limited Governor Jeb Bush. We will see if the message of change resonates with Florida voters. I am praying that it will. Please pray for us Floridians that it does.