Richard Corcoran may have been one of the most powerful men in Tallahassee, but he was all but unknown everywhere else.
Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran dropped out of the governor’s race Wednesday and threw his support to Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam.
Technically, Corcoran had never formally entered the race but in reality had been running for some time. His political action committee raised $6.9 million by the end of last month. His anticipated run for the governorship shaped the past two sessions of the Florida Legislature.
He even ran a scary commercial telling everyone to be afraid of swarthy foreigners in hoodies who randomly kill pretty little red-haired girls walking around the suburban sidewalks because presumably that’s what those people do.
The plan was to run to the populist right of the already conservative Putnam to appeal to Donald Trump voters. The controversial ad presumably was only a sample of red meat that would be served up later.
A strategy that seemed plausible enough last year, but was undone at Christmastime with a single Tweet.
“Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!” the president broadcast on his Twitter account. And DeSantis, who had not been all that well known even within his Volusia/Flagler-based U.S. House district, was suddenly the gubernatorial candidate for Florida Trumpers.
And with that, the rug was pulled out from under the state’s most powerful legislator.
It’s a remarkable thing about Florida politics that a speaker of the House, the most important person in state government for at least 60 days of the year, is unknown to virtually anyone you’d encounter once you drive outside Tallahassee’s Capital Circle.
The last House speaker to serve as governor was Farris Bryant, who was speaker in 1953, which was a rather long time ago.
Former House Speaker Marco Rubio did manage to win statewide and become a U.S. senator in the 2010 Tea Party wave election, but before that, the last Florida House speaker to win the post was Samuel Pasco in 1887. That also was a rather long time ago. Before direct election of senators, so the only people who got to vote for him were members of the Florida Senate.
When House Speaker Johnnie Byrd ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, he raised $2.7 million but did no better than fourth place in the Republican primary with only 5.9 percent of the vote. He came in behind Doug Gallagher, who got support from people who mistakenly thought they were voting for his more famous brother, Tom Gallagher.
Like Byrd, Corcoran had a reputation for an autocratic style of running things and was more feared than loved in Tallahassee. Like Byrd, his support evaporated the day after the session ended. There weren’t many polls done at this early stage of the game but none showed him to have more than single-digit name recognition.
So now the Republican race will be between DeSantis, who will run as the Trump-anointed candidate, and Putnam, who will be pulled rightward by DeSantis on national and social issues but try to emphasize state issues and his North Florida bona fides.
Nobody running for governor in either party’s primary is a household name. And this is a big state with more than double the population of Sweden. And that means it’s an expensive proposition to get your name out. Even if you’re on Fox News about as often as the GEICO lizard (like DeSantis) or your name is on every gas station inspection sticker in the state (like Putnam).
The Republican race has been dramatically simplified this week, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a long, expensive summer ahead.