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By HOWARD TROXLER
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 7, 2000
A debate among Florida politicians about the elderly is a fight over shades of gray. You will never hear a Florida candidate declare: "I say, stick 'em all on ice floes, and let Social Security go broke."
Rest assured, therefore, that our top three candidates for U.S. Senate love the elderly. Why, they are descended from elderly people themselves.
They are tripping over each other to buy prescription drugs for senior citizens, even if they disagree over the details. And not a single one of them is in favor of destroying Medicare.
Having said that, there are differences. They were highlighted Thursday morning when Bill Nelson, the Democrat, Bill McCollum, the Republican, and Willie Logan, the no-party candidate, met at a forum on elderly issues sponsored by the group Aging With Dignity.
It was supposed to be just a Nelson-McCollum matchup, on the theory that Logan hasn't got a chance. But Logan showed up anyway, and the others let him in, which showed gumption on his part, and grace on theirs.
McCollum is a member of the U.S. House from Longwood outside of Orlando. He is mostly a conservative, pro-business, tough-on-crime sort of guy. For some reason, he rarely mentions in mainstream settings that he was one of the House managers of the impeachment case against President Clinton. Are those bygones bygones?
Nelson is the state insurance commissioner and has caused some anger within that industry by now and then actually attempting to regulate it. The Legislature took away part of his power to knock such notions out of his head. Nelson also used to be in the U.S. House and once flew on the space shuttle, which to supporters demonstrates his guts, and to detractors, his ambition.
Many Democrats dislike McCollum bitterly, especially after the impeachment business. They believe he is a right-winger putting on a fake smile and acting like everybody's buddy to get elected. Republicans dislike Nelson just as vigorously, believing him to be a fake who has used his office for partisan advancement.
Logan is the most interesting of the three, the least like a cookie-cutter politician. He was a Democratic member of the state Legislature from Opa-locka, and he was in line to become the leader of all Democrats in the state House. At the last moment, even though this had been arranged long in advance, the Democrats realized that Logan was, uh, black, and booted him out. He is repaying the favor by running an independent campaign that is sure to draw most of whatever votes it gets from Nelson.
Anyway, Nelson and McCollum had name tags and chairs all set up for them. Logan grabbed another chair and sat at the end of the table, next to McCollum. After a certain period of prayin', pledgin' and singin' (Getting to Know You), moderator Jim Towey plunged into an excellent list of questions.
Let us cut to the chase. They all figure on using the projected big federal surpluses of the next few years to keep Social Security and Medicare healthy, and they all support some sort of prescription drug program. McCollum backs the idea already passed by the House of subsidizing private insurers to cover prescriptions. Nelson says that is a terrible idea.
Both Logan and McCollum say young wage earners should be able to invest part of their Social Security tax in the stock market, and Logan would even invest part of the Social Security Trust Fund itself in securities.
Nelson called that sort of thing reckless and kept jabbing at McCollum for supporting tax cuts for the rich.
A few months ago I worried that a McCollum-Nelson race would be "Stiff Vs. Stiffer." But all of them were good Thursday. Maybe Nelson is what the Democrats have been missing, namely, somebody who knows how to fight instead of whine when the Republicans start the liberal-liberal chant. If so, it will be a good contest.