From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and Its Politics since 1940

3. Reubin Askew, Lawton Chiles, and the Reinvention of the Democratic Party

77 3 Reubin Askew, Lawton Chiles, and the Reinvention of the Democratic Party Giddy over their dramatic election victories in 1966, 1967, and 1968 as well as Richard Nixon’s victory in Florida in the 1968 presidential election , many Republicans predicted the party would take political control of the state in the near future. But others, like William Cramer, who had toiled in the Republican trenches for nearly two decades, were not so sanguine. Cramer recognized that opportunity beckoned, but it could be a fickle friend if Republicans were not attentive to the public interest. In many ways, Republican political successes in Florida came too quickly, before the party had sufficient time to recruit and develop able candidates and before it solidified its relationship with voters. At the end of the day, the party’s leading politicians failed supporters and the party badly: Nixon through political arrogance, Kirk through boorish behavior, and Gurney through questionable ethics. 78 · From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans Their mistakes gave Democrats an unexpected second chance—the opportunity to reclaim the governorship in Florida and a U.S. Senate seat in 1970 and, in the process, political leadership of the state. Earl Faircloth, still fresh from narrowly losing the Democratic senatorial primary to Collins in 1968, announced his candidacy for governor. He was the clear statewide favorite in a field that included three regional candidates: Chuck Hall, mayor of Miami; Reubin Askew, state senator from Escambia County in the Panhandle; and John E. Mathews, state senator from Duval County, which encompassed Jacksonville. Viewing himself as the front-runner, Faircloth chose to ignore his lesser-known Democratic rivals, conducting his campaign instead against Governor Kirk, whom he labeled incompetent and irresponsible.1 Faircloth and his challengers in the primary offered voters an interesting mix of alternatives. Hall of Miami provided great entertainment value in the campaign, flying around the state in his own DC-3 and being escorted between towns in a white Rolls Royce. A teetotaler and nonsmoker, Hall looked and sounded like a modern-day Billy Sunday , calling for the abolition of pornography, stiff penalties for drug possession and drug sales, and stricter codes of moral discipline on college campuses. But Floridians had tired of the pyrotechnics of the Kirk administration and yearned for more serious gubernatorial leadership . Moreover, Faircloth, like Hall, resided in Miami, and he had already mobilized most of the serious Dade County electorate behind his candidacy.2 The two other candidates were largely new to Floridians; both came from the same region of the state, which was rapidly being supplanted by south Florida. Faircloth’s forces saw the two men as more serious rivals than Hall but were equally confident that Faircloth would defeat both and win the Democratic nomination in the first primary. Not surprisingly, both Mathews and Askew had the same goal—to deny Faircloth victory in the first primary and gain sufficient statewide recognition to defeat him in the runoff. Mathews’s campaign, however, often mirrored Faircloth’s, calling for responsible and fiscally sound government , conservative leadership, low taxes, and a business-oriented administration. Askew was the great unknown in the contest. Widely respected among his peers in the state Senate for his leadership and integrity, Reubin Askew, Lawton Chiles, and the Reinvention of the Democratic Party · 79 Askew viewed Collins as his political mentor and had little use for Faircloth, whose personal attacks against Collins in the 1968 senatorial primary still offended Askew. Choosing to run an issue-oriented campaign instead of one that revolved around personality, Askew called for greater environmental stewardship, racial justice, corporate responsibility , honesty and integrity in government, a stronger educational system for all Floridians, and more effective law enforcement. When asked why he had taken stances on such controversial issues, Askew told the press unequivocally, as was his wont, that he hoped to be governor , but “not so bad that I would spend four years of frustration with my hands tied.” It was statements like this and his personal charisma that enabled Askew to finish ahead of Mathews and Hall in the first primary and denied Faircloth outright victory, but he ran more than twenty thousand votes behind Faircloth and had less than one month before the second primary election occurred to turn the table. (The first primary vote took place on September 8, 1970, and the second on September 29.) That both Hall and Mathews endorsed...