http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN51102206.htm">Davis offers better focus for Florida, October 22, 2006
Wonderful endorsement!
Here are just a few clips:
Before Florida voters choose their next governor, let's look back.
For almost eight years, this state's schools and public services have been hampered by a governor who disdains government. Jeb Bush tells voters they're better off for his policies to reorganize, downsize, privatize and dismantle state services. He brags that Florida's public schools are more accountable and Floridians are more prosperous.
What state is he in? Not Florida.
For all of his student-testing, school-grading FCAT schemes, Florida ranks near the bottom among states for high school graduation rates and college entrance exam scores. Teacher pay is embarrassingly low for one of the nation's higher-growth states. And classrooms are overcrowded. Yet Bush tried to undermine a voter mandate to reduce class-size ratios, saying it costs too much, even as he attempted to shift public money into private religious and for-profit schools through voucher handouts.
Meanwhile, he handed out fat contracts to private companies with questionable performance records to run prisons, social services and other state programs that in most cases had been managed competently by public employees. And he pushed the Legislature to cut taxes as favors to wealthy Floridians while leaving most Floridians to struggle under a notoriously regressive tax system.
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Florida can't afford more of Bush's reckless anti-government experiment. Yet Charlie Crist, the Republican nominee for governor, says he would continue in Bush's steps. That's not surprising. As education commissioner, Crist signed off on every program Bush wanted and hailed them as successes even as educators and parents were telling him otherwise.
Fortunately, voters have in Jim Davis a potential governor with a clear sense of what most Floridians need and expect from their state government and the leadership abilities to provide it. The Tampa congressman and former state legislator lacks Crist's on-camera charm, but voters can be sure that Davis off camera would be immersed in the issues important to them and working with state leaders for bipartisan solutions. Crist, Florida's attorney general, recently didn't know, when asked, who his own congressman is, not surprising to Floridians who have followed his career. Off camera, he's too often not paying attention.
The two candidates present voters with distinct differences on critical concerns for this state:
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ON EDUCATION:
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ON PROPERTY INSURANCE:
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ON TAXES:
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On the environment, growth, health care and many other issues, Davis proposes sensible policies that protect the interests of rank-and-file Floridians, while Crist favors the status quo. The sooner Florida puts the Jeb Bush years -- and those like Crist who would sustain them -- behind it, the more responsive and protective state government will be to all Floridians. Jim Davis would make that a priority.
· RECOMMENDATION: Jim Davis for Florida governor.
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