FLORIDA FLORIDA FLORIDA: it’s the ultimate swing state, crazy from the heat of the weather or its own legislative invention, a lawless free-fire zone with guns more abundant than in the wild wild West. And with roughly nine weeks left before the November elections, the Sunshine State’s gubernatorial race is shaping up as the one to watch, thanks to an upset no one thought was possible, a racist dog-whistle everyone knew was probably inevitable, and the reliable potential for surprise common to a region in the center of the American Venn diagram of race and ethnicity, politics and the evolving national future.
The Sunshine State has set the stage, and the stakes, for a compelling finale to the 2018 midterms, and quite possibly sets the terms of Democratic engagement with Republican power in 2020.
There was idle talk that President* Trump had effectively nationalized the midterms, making them a referendum on his time in office. Inquiring minds would beg to differ: the midterms are necessarily a referendum on the people in state offices right now seeking re-election, and a gauge of the qualifications of those hoping to get elected for the first time. Trump can only hope the outcome of the midterms aren’t a national expression of his time in the Oval Office; the results of the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll would seem to say he shouldn’t do that.
But if there’s a way of truly, organically nationalizing this midterm vote — of taking the micro and viewing it in a macro context — it’s there in the Florida gubernatorial. ...
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