That Sink-ing Feeling

For the past few months, the cable news channels have been talking about the Republican gubernatorial primary election in Florida without one single word about the Democratic gubernatorial primary in that state, which was also contested. So we heard about Rick Scott and former congressman Bill McCollum on the GOP side, but nothing about the Democrats<

Last night, Scott won the Republican nomination in an upset, with the results of the Democratic nomination barely even mentioned. The winner of the Democratic nomination was Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.

"Alex Sink?" I thought. "Who's he?"

Alex Sink is a woman.

For the record, she was elected Chief Financial Officer of Florida in 2006, and she also serves as a member of the board of trustees of Florida State University. A former banker and math teacher, Sink has an interesting personal history, as she is of Thai, or Siamese, origin, and she's descended from conjoined nineteenth-century twins Chang and Eng, whose ethnicity led to the now politically incorrect term "Siamese twins." But you won't hear any of that from Chris Matthews. (Good grief, he was so fixated on Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist in the Senate race he almost forgot that Democrats were running for the same seat.)

It's never good when candidates for public office (Democrats, usually) can't get much free media, especially on the national level. On the other hand, Sink leads Rick Scott in various polls, in part because Bill McCollum beat up on him so much in the primary campaign and drove up his negatives.

Hmm, Alex Sink could actually win this thing. . . .

Fun fact: Chang and Eng supported William Henry Harrison for President in 1840.