The "Dixie-Dade" Strategy

A lot of folks who follow Florida electoral politics--statewide races especially--would say that for a Democrat to win the state, he/she needs to dominate South Florida, fight to a draw or better in Central Florida, and survive in North Florida.

In Maryland, it's much the same equation: dominate the "Blue Corridor" stretching from Prince George's County through Montgomery County, Howard County all the way to Baltimore City; fight to a draw or better in the Baltimore suburbs; and survive in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore.

In Virginia, you need to rack up giant margins in Northern Virginia (NOVA), get out the progressive vote in Norfolk/Newport News, Charlottesville, and Richmond, and survive in Southside, Shenandoah, Northern Neck, Middle Peninsula, Southwest VA and assorted hinterlands.

The 1994 Bush-Chiles Florida gubernatorial election put conventional wisdom about the state to the ultimate test. It taught a good rule of thumb: If a Democrat can carry Dixie and Miami-Dade County, they've bagged the elephant. Governor Chiles won re-election in a year when Congressman Newt Gingrich's slash-and-burn conservative revolution incinerated every big oak in the forest from Texas to Alabama to New York. Social conservative Rick Santorum won a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Even in Democratic strongholds Maryland and Massachusetts, incumbents fought to 11th hour, nail-biting victories. In his first mid-term test, voters pushed back President Bill Clinton's agenda in state houses across the country and in Washington, DC.

Dixie County is the heart of Florida's Big Bend, aka "Nature Coast," where the swampy, poison ivied, cypress-kneed Suwannee River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. It is "cracker" country that supported cracker Democrats like Bob Graham, Lawton Chiles and Bill Clinton. You're about as likely to find a Starbucks there as you are a liberal Democrat. In 2004, President Bush carried it by 68%.

Miami-Dade County...as late as the 1950s it was still a "lamb chop" compared to the North Florida "Pork Choppers" who ran state politics. When Chiles was born, Miami-Dade was a burgeoning backwater. Today, the census bureau estimates it's the eighth most populous county in the United States and its got the political heft worthy of an international metropolis. Half the county is foreign-born. Half speak Spanish as their first language. In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry carried it by about 53%.

Dixie County favored Governor Chiles in 1994 by 22 votes, Miami-Dade by about 17,000. The exact numbers don't matter so much as the image of a Dixie Blue Dog and a Miami-Dade Yankee going into the voting booth on Election Day in the nation's fourth largest state and pulling the lever for the "Dream Team" Chiles/MacKay. The He-Coon's campaign surely didn't target Dixie and Dade; but it must have been a satisfying sprinkle on top of the victory cake to take them both. The very mark of the 67-county strategy.

As many have remarked, Chiles could "swim in two ponds." Of course, win a big enough margin in Miami-Dade and the rest of Florida--including little Dixie County--can take a long walk off a short pier. The election is sealed up. But the Dixie-Dade Strategy is about symbolism. And that still counts for a lot in politics.

Dixie County: Chiles-MacKay Country in 1994.

Miami-Dade County: Chiles-MacKay Country in 1994.

The Big Money

Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen wrote a critique today of all the Democratic presidential candidates' scramble for enough cash to win Iowa and a shot at the White House.

Although he's known for his acid, sarcastic tone, Hiaasen wrote a touching elegy for Lawton Chiles soon after his death. Unfortunately, 1998 is too far back to link to it. You'd have to pay to see the archive.

Leo McGarry, Chief of Staff

For many in my generation, the TV show The West Wing has been a guide through the wilderness of today's politics, thanks to the brilliant synergy of director Thomas Schlamme, screenwriter and creator Aaron Sorkin, and the entire cast.

It's great political storytelling. Sorkin creates a fully functioning family that fights, compromises, and celebrates victory and mourns defeat--together. Here DC is the company town and the White House is HQ. The office never sleeps, no matter how many well-placed memos Josh Lyman writes.

And when the two oldest characters fight, the junior staff might as well be flies on the wall. President Jed Bartlet and Chief of Staff Leo McGarry fill the roles of elder statesmen in Sorkin's world. As I think about the role of the several chiefs of staff who served with Governor Lawton Chiles, I think often about the post. Seems to be McGarry got it right.

"So, my friend, if you wanna start using the American military strength as the arm of the Lord, you can do that. We're the only superpower left, you can conquer the world like Charlemagne, but you better be prepared to kill everyone, and you better start with me, 'cause I will raise-up an army against you and I will beat you."

- Leo McGarry, "A Proportional Response"

"If we're going to walk into walls I want us running into them full speed. We're going to lose some of these battles, and we might even lose the White House, but we're not going to be threatened by issues. We're going to bring 'em front and center. We're going to raise the level of public debate in this country, and let that be our legacy."

- Leo McGarry, "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet"

"Because I'm tired of it. Year after year after year after year, having to choose between the lesser of who cares. Of trying to get myself excited about the candidate who can speak in complete sentences. Of setting the bar so low I can hardly look at it. They say a good man can't get elected, president, I don't believe that, do you?"

- Leo McGarry, "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen"

McGarry found Bartlet, taught him how to run for office on a national stage, to lean on his political principles, his economic genius, and his soaring oration--not just his New Hampshire background. To pick a phrase from a later season of the show, he made Bartlet "good for all time zones." A brand. A name and a cause that wedded McGarry to his job and the constant fight to "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet" in spite of sagging public approval, Republican attacks, and the exhaustion of a 24/7 week. The job never ends, even after the collapse of his marriage.

Josh, Toby, Sam, and C.J. may have joined the team later, but McGarry is the one who wrote the presidential campaign's strategy on a napkin: "Bartlet for America." He gave it voice, credibility,and grativas all the way from the New Hampshire's January snows to the summer Democratic National Convention's bright lights and balloons. He gave it voice until Bartlet found his.

In the Third Season, the episode "Bartlet for America" puts you in the room with McGarry's race of emotions. As a Christmas gift, Bartlet gives McGarry a framed copy of the famous napkin. The crush of nostalgia and satisfaction brings Leo to tears. He takes a seat, alone. The screen fades to black. The late actor John Spencer doesn't just sell it; he lives it and lets it happen.

Unlike Bob Graham and Reubin Askew, Lawton Chiles never seemed to harbor presidential ambitions. His most stories political campaigns made for edge-of-the seat cinema nonetheless. These were underdog Florida-wide campaigns chock full of personality, drive, and tables of finger lickin' hot dogs and chicken--enough to make Bartlet for America seem like week-old oatmeal.

When old friend Buddy MacKay first met with Lawton Chiles in 1990 to try to persuade him to get back into politics and run for governor, Chiles said, "you're crazy." Then Chiles said he would only do it if contributions were limited to $100 a head. MacKay said, "you're crazy." The Martinez administration's failures, an inspiring speech from Vaclav Havel, and other factors pushed him, too. Rhea Chiles said it was like watching an old outboard motor get tugged and tugged until finally it started to purr. And the $100 a head contributions continued in the successful Chiles-MacKay 1994 bid for re-election.

Multiple chiefs of staff served under Gov. Chiles. When the governor died, his old friend Dexter Douglass remarked, "Lawton was always Lawton."

Thanks to a friend for the choice West Wing quotes. Godspeed, John Spencer.

Walkin' Marianna

The rainclouds came and went all day. By the time it cleared up, the lighting was pretty good.


The twilight on a variety of memorial stonework in front of the Jackson County Courthouse.

Main Street Marianna on the Lawton Chiles Trail.


It got rainy again near Sneads.

Almost canopied oak stretch of highway 90 near Oak Grove.

S-CHIP Blues

Children's health dominated Chiles' agenda, especially in his second term as governor of Florida.

President Bush's veto of expanded funding of S-CHIP--State Children's Health Care Program--has governors like Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and Gov. Tim Kaine (D) in uproar.

A half a dozen states have even filed suit against the federal government to seek redress of this grievance.

Regardless of the political winds, the Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies continues vital research on infant mortality and prenatal/early childhood health care.

The Lawton Chiles Children and Family Health Care Center in Bradenton, Florida offers pediatric care to folks like 4-year-old Eva Vasquez. A recent Bradenton Herald article discusses how poor families can "fall through the cracks" when they're too well-off for Medicaid, but not wealthy enough to buy decent insurance. That's where S-CHIP comes in. But if there is no money for S-CHIP, there is often little recourse but staying at home and hoping to get better.

Chiles and His Florida: Marianna

Marianna, just west of the Central-Eastern Time Zone divide on highway 90, probably stuck out for Chiles on his walk because of Chipola College. In his day, it was called Chipola Junior College, but now it offers full bachelor's degrees and it's got a new name. Apparently, the sports program isn't too shabby these days either. At about 6,000 residents, Marianna is also a bit bigger than the average courthouse town in the Panhandle. And it would have to be to support a community college.

And of course, Marianna doesn't want for Confederate lore. There is even a website and book devoted to the Battle of Marianna (1864), a small Union victory. Federal troops may have spared Tallahassee, but they laid waste to Marianna without much trouble.

Its proximity to Panama City Beach and the pleasant Chipola River running through it have gotten it a couple golf course communities--Florida State Golf Course and Indian Springs Golf Course. The location probably made for good digs in the old days since it's approximately equal distance from the two main towns of Old Florida--Pensacola and Tallahassee.

Marianna is the Jackson County seat, one of the oldest in Florida since originally there were only two regions in Florida--East and West--covering the length of the modern Panhandle and North Florida. In 1822, the Florida Territorial Legislative Council divided West Florida into Jackson and Escambia Counties.

Jackson County Courthouse, with easy access to I-10 and US 90.

One of the biggest county courthouses in the Panhandle I suspect. It was raining off and on all day and lighting was tough.

It was getting late in the day, so I didn't get pics, but I did see a correctional institute on the edge of town that I suspect is the one mentioned in the Walkin' Notes:

I visited the Marianna School for Boys in Marianna and I really enjoyed that visit. The last time that I went to a correctional school for boys was in Okeechobee a little over a year ago and that time I came away tremendously depressed. The boys all had very vacant looks, a complete lack of hope, a frustration on their faces and even the staff people did not seem to have any enthusiasm for the program.

But all that is changed, I think, in our whole system and I know it has in Marianna. Lennox Williams, who's the director of the school, is doing an excellent job as is Ollie Keller, the director of the Division of Youth Services.

They have put in group sessions. They have the boys in cottages and in those cottages they have several groups. The boys get together with anything that's bothering them or any problems that they're having between each other. It gives them an identity, it really gives them something that they can attach to and it makes them realize, I think, that someone does care. They get to caring about each other in that group and helping each other.

I talked to a number of the boys that had been to Marianna 2 or 3 times before this group program went in. All of them felt that they had a better chance of helping themselves and being able to get back into society than they'd ever had before. Now there is an air of hope about these boys. They're all enthused about the program. So I came away from there with a feeling that Florida is really on the track in this correctional institution for our boys.

Orange Blossom Special

Actually, Johnny Cash did write at least one song on Florida, "Orange Blossom Special," referring to the New York-Florida train of that name.