It was, to borrow a term from the malpractice debate, an adverse incident.
It was a Tuesday e-mail from Alan Levine, a deputy chief of staff to Gov. Jeb Bush. On a state e-mail account, Levine shared with a friend in the hospital industry the frustration about Tampa Bay area senators who won't support Bush's call for a tight cap on damage awards.
Levine echoed the friend's view about unseating first-term Sen. Mike Bennett of Bradenton, and added of a Pinellas senator: "Same thing with Dennis Jones. ... He's been a real issue."
Levine, a former executive with the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), has since apologized.
But long before he hit the send button, something profound was taking place in this bummer of a summer for Jeb Bush.
It has become safe, practically fashionable, for Republicans to tee off on this governor, whose job approval rating stood at 56 percent in a recent poll. This is a governor who made history just eight months ago as the first Republican to win back-to-back four-year terms in Florida.
No longer is Bush-bashing the exclusive province of Democrats, or of maverick Republicans such as Sen. Tom Lee of Brandon or the outspoken Senate President Jim King.
Now he hears criticism from rank-and-file Republicans who seldom pick fights with Democrats, much less Republicans: Jones, the quiet senator and chiropractor from Pinellas; Sen. Victor Crist of Tampa; even Lisa Carlton, a soft-spoken senator from Sarasota.
In Senate floor speeches - televised talks meant to capture the governor's attention - they got in their licks.
"We have learned first-hand that when political strong-arm tactics are used to force policy decisions, the people of Florida suffer," Carlton said. She said: "This Senate has a wealth of institutional knowledge, and its members' cumulative legislative experience exceeds that of any other branch of government." The message, still felt deeply in the Senate, is that Bush & Co. suffer from inexperience.
"There is a lot of misinformation being sent out to our constituents, just to stir up some anger, that isn't true," Crist said. "For the governor to say that I am for any interest groups is an outright distortion of the facts."
The malpractice meltdown, Bush's biggest policy setback, has gone from bad to worse in just the past week. Bush threw the first punch. And the second. And the third.
By questioning the motives and the very Republicanism of senators, Bush broke Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.")
He also dug himself a giant hole with people like Lee, the Senate's probable next president. As such, the Brandon lawmaker, who has a good memory, will have the power to torpedo Bush's entire agenda in 2005 and beyond.
What happened here?
Bush got personal. Senators are fiercely protective of their co-equal status with the executive branch. Bush said senators "caved" to trial lawyers, and this week, he accused them of abandoning the Republican principles that got them elected. Then came Levine's e-mail - "the smoking gun," Lee called it.
Other senators say Bush is unwilling to compromise. Not true, Bush says, pointing to his support for the House's proposed $1-million cap.
"I'm a little tired of the bickering, but I want to get the job done," Bush said Friday, after touring the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa.
Three legislative sessions have come and gone, and still no malpractice bill. The lofty intentions of March have given way to the meanness of mid-July. Next Monday afternoon, the Senate Judiciary Committee will "invite" a lot of witnesses to testify under oath about Florida's medical malpractice problem.
Perhaps Alan Levine said it best in his e-mail this week, when he described the governor's predicament this way: "He's out on a limb."
- Steve Bousquet is the Times' deputy capital bureau chief.
