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The following is a selection from "Sink's business plan: fiddling in the margins", the latest opinion piece from Gulf Coast Business Review Editor Matt Walsh. The column in its entirety was printed in the April 2 edition of the Review.
Alex Sink's business plan will not get her elected governor.
Nor will it make Florida's business community rally behind her.
We'll give Florida's chief financial officer this, though: As far as private-sector business experience, Sink is smart to play up her career as a banker compared to that of her Republican opponent, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. Businesswoman-turned-politician versus career politician. McCollum better have some big ideas.
We'll spare you the time it would take to read Sink's recently released business plan for Florida and dissect it for you.
For the most part, it has the predictable politico-hackney-speak. To wit:
“Alex Sink believes ... “Florida Must be a Land of Opportunity” ... “Florida Should Do Everything Possible to Support our Businesses” ... “Florida's Governor can bring our State Together to Achieve Success.”
Bring out the caffeine.
And you have to strain to find anything innovative, groundbreaking or outside the political comfort zone of what we call “government in the margins.”
Her business plan is ... safe, obviously intended not to offend any particular interest group.
What's not in the plan:
• There's no mention of tort reform.
• There's no mention of any bold steps to address Florida's dysfunctional property insurance market.
• There's no mention of Florida's impending commercial real-estate crisis.
• There's no mention of growth management.
• No mention of oil. The closest Sink gets to the petroleum tar ball is to regurgitate what all the politicians say, Democrat and Republican alike. Says Sink's plan: “We need the commitment, leadership and supportive policies necessary to make Florida a global leader in new and renewable energy.” No word on what she means specifically.
Continued analysis can be found either in print, or in the online version, posted here.
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