The Democrat and lifelong public servant is an independent thinker and a moderate voice, much like the popular senator she would replace.
Published October 3, 2004
In the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, one candidate brings a reassuring resume and the other an identity crisis.
Betty Castor is, like Graham, a lifelong public servant. She was a Hillsborough County Commission reformer, state senator, state education commissioner, and University of South Florida president. She shares with Graham a love for education and a concern about health care, and she also has worked to form bipartisan solutions to problems.
Mel Martinez is a successful lawyer who, by most accounts, was a progressive Orange County chairman. He was appointed secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by President Bush in 2001. Since returning to run for Senate, though, Martinez has spent most of his campaign persuading voters he is radical, partisan and mean-spirited.
Though candidates often put on harsher makeup for their party primaries, this year's campaigns were unusually revealing.
Castor told Democrats that: The No Child Left Behind Act may have been well-intended, but has been miserably executed; the president made a serious miscalculation with Iraq, but that the nation has to finish the job; millionaires shouldn't get tax breaks when the country is facing record deficits; all families deserve decent health care and affordable prescription drugs; working wages must be living wages and the minimum wage should be increased; jobs and veterans benefits are priorities; scientific research on stem cells shouldn't be limited by political agendas.
Martinez told Republicans that: He thinks Bush has been right on virtually every action as president, and "I'll vote for George W. Bush's policies every chance I get!"; he will "defend the Constitution from liberal activist judges" and confirm only "conservative judges"; he "will always vote to protect our Second Amendment" and make gun laws less restrictive; he will "oppose any and all efforts" to increase tax rates, reduce tax deductions or credits, regardless of the impact on deficits; he is "no centrist" on social values. Martinez also branded former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum as "antifamily" for supporting expanded stem cell research and ran commercials labeling McCollum "the new darling of homosexual extremists" for supporting hate crime laws.
What Castor offers in this election is the same thing she has offered in most every election and office she has held. She is an independent thinker and a moderate voice in much the same tradition as Graham. She worked with a Republican lawmaker to pass a state health care law, called Healthy Kids, that has become a national model for insuring poor children. She was responsible for creating school councils that gave parents a stronger role and equipped them with detailed information about performance, a change that wasn't greeted with enthusiasm by teacher unions. She worked with businesses to help create the I-4 High Technology Council, which linked USF, the University of Central Florida and technology companies in the region.
Martinez is trying now to separate himself from his ugly primary campaign excesses, but he found himself just last week having to reload from another cheap shot. In an e-mail to Miami radio stations pandering to lingering Cuban-American concerns about the 2000 Elian Gonzalez ordeal, the Martinez campaign referred to federal law enforcement agents as "armed thugs." When law enforcement unions took umbrage, he blamed the stunt on "someone who was writing for the campaign" as though he were not in control of his own staff.
One of the ways Bob Graham maintained enormous popularity in a politically divided state was that he generally walked near the center of the road. That's where you will find Castor, and that is why her campaign didn't need to switch messages for the general election. Martinez, on the other hand, was so vicious in the primary that former Republican U.S. Sen. Connie Mack said he "forfeited his ability to attract mainstream Democrats and independents in November."
Florida already has suffered enough partisan division. Betty Castor is in a position to help bring people together, not further alienate them. We strongly recommend her.
