Why would anybody want to be governor of Florida?
A lot of people ask me that. To me, after being in the Senate 18 years, I can tell you this is the best job I’ve ever had. The Senate got into gridlock; it’s only gotten worse since I left in 1988. Here, in this job, with all of the problems, as the governor, you get a chance to lead. You get a chance to call the shots of how you’re going to go about doing something. I always worried about whether I could be effective, because I had been a legislator. That’s a little different, putting consensuses together. But to me, this is even easier. Part of it is, I don’t see many things I haven’t seen before. Look at the (Cuban) rafters. Because I had been through Mariel, I knew exactly what was happening once those Coast Guard captains told me not only was Castro allowing them to come, he was promoting it. I knew we were in another Mariel. And I also knew that if we didn’t do something very quickly, it would get away from us. That’s the way it got away from (former President Jimmy) Carter. I sa
