The Paul Truesdell PodcastVoice One:
Well, you know, I just finished listening to something, and I have to tell you—it reminded me of the kind of conversation we used to have back when people still believed in taking the time to understand things. This fellow Paul Truesdell and a young lady named Carol sat down and talked about Florida politics, the Republican Party, and where this whole country is headed. And let me tell you, it's the real deal.
Voice Two:
I listened to it too. Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. This Truesdell—very smart guy, by the way, very smart—he knows Florida like nobody else. He's been watching it for forty years. Forty years! And he connects everything. The history, the money, the politics. This is not your usual boring political talk. This is the real story.
Voice One:
That's exactly right. He starts way back—1986, when Bob Martinez won the governorship. Now, most folks today don't remember what a big deal that was. Florida had been a one-party Democratic state for over a century. A century! And Truesdell explains how it all changed, step by step. The victories, the setbacks, the scandals. There was a party chairman who went to prison, a Ponzi schemer who was buying fifty-thousand-dollar birthday cakes with stolen money. You can't make this stuff up.
Voice Two:
The scandals were unbelievable. Unbelievable. But here's what I liked—he doesn't just complain about it. He explains why it happened and what you do about it. You purge the bad ones. You clean house. That's how you win. And he talks about winners and losers. The 'next in line' guys who thought it was their turn? Destroyed. Every time. McCollum, Putnam—gone. Because voters don't care whose turn it is. They care about results.
Voice One:
And he brings it right up to today—the twenty, twenty-six governor's race. All the players. Byron Donalds, who's got that important endorsement. The new Lieutenant Governor, Jay Collins—a Green Beret who lost his leg serving this country. Wilton Simpson sitting on thirty million dollars. And of course, Casey DeSantis, who everybody's wondering about. It's all there, laid out clearly, so you can understand what's really happening.
Voice Two:
And the Democrats—total disaster, by the way—but he's fair about it. He explains their problems. They've got a former Republican running as a Democrat now. Another guy quit the party completely, said it was dead. Dead! Can you believe that? Their own guy said that. Truesdell doesn't sugarcoat anything. He tells it like it is. That's what I respect.
Voice One:
But here's what really got me—he goes beyond Florida. He talks about the cycles of history. How after Watergate, everyone said our party was finished. Going the way of the Whigs, they said. And you know what? They didn't even understand what they were saying. The Whigs became us. Abraham Lincoln was a Whig. The Republican Party didn't come from nowhere—it evolved from something.
Voice Two:
And then he talks about the comeback. The big comeback. After Carter—who was a disaster, total disaster, attacked by a rabbit, can you believe it?—the party came roaring back. Forty-nine states. The biggest electoral victory ever. Maybe ever. That's what's possible when you have the right leadership and the right message. History proves it.
Voice One:
He also draws these wonderful parallels to business. Kodak, Sears, General Electric—giants who got comfortable and collapsed. The lesson being that success can breed complacency, and complacency is the enemy. Whether you're running a company or running a party, the minute you think you've got it made, you're in trouble.
Voice Two:
So true. So true. And he finishes with this incredible explanation of his sign-off—'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.' Most people have no idea what that means. But it's about the Whigs, it's about history, it's about his father's service in World War II. There's a clicking sound he makes—friend or foe, like the soldiers used. Very powerful. Very meaningful. Not just words.
Voice One:
Well, I think what we're trying to say is—if you care about the Republican Party, if you care about Florida, if you care about understanding where we've been so you can help decide where we're going—you need to listen to this. All five parts. It's an investment of your time, but it's worth it. This is the kind of thoughtful, informed discussion we don't get enough of anymore.
Voice Two:
Absolutely. The best. One of the best things I've heard. And I've heard a lot, believe me. So sit back, pay attention, and listen to Paul Truesdell and Carol. You're going to learn things. Tremendous things. Things that will make you smarter about politics than ninety-nine percent of the people out there. That I can tell you.
Voice One:
So here it is, folks. Five parts. A journey through Florida's political transformation, the national lessons that apply everywhere, and a reminder that history isn't just about the past—it's the key to the future. Enjoy.
Voice Two:
Enjoy. You're going to love it. Yes, love it. Really. You’ll get a kick out of this podcast series. Yes. Love it.
Paul, you've been watching Florida politics for over four decades now. I want to start with something that might surprise people who think of Florida as permanently red. When Bob Martinez won the governorship in 1986, just how big of a deal was that for Republicans in this state?
001 Paul:
Carol, let me tell you, if you weren't there, you really can't appreciate what that moment meant. You have to understand, Florida had been a one-party state—and I mean truly a one-party state—for over a century. From the end of Reconstruction until 1966, not a single Republican had sat in the governor's mansion. Not one. Democrats owned this state the way your grandmother owns her Sunday pot roast recipe. It wasn't even competitive. The primary was the election. If you won the Democratic primary, you might as well measure the drapes.
Now, Claude Kirk broke through in '66, and that was shocking enough. But here's the thing—Kirk was a one-term wonder. Colorful fellow, lots of drama, but the Democrats came roaring back with Reubin Askew in 1970, and then they held it for another sixteen years straight. So when Bob Martinez won in '86, it wasn't just a Republican winning. It was proof that Kirk wasn't a fluke. It meant maybe, just maybe, the political landscape of Florida was fundamentally changing.
And remember, Martinez wasn't even a lifelong Republican. The man had been a Democrat, served as mayor of Tampa as a Democrat, and then switched parties in 1983. So you had this converted Democrat beating the Democratic establishment at their own game. That sent shockwaves through Tallahassee that people are still feeling today.
002 Carol:
That's fascinating context. But Martinez didn't get a second term. What happened there? Because if Republicans had this breakthrough, you'd think they would have built on it.
002 Paul:
Oh, Carol, this is a classic case of overreach meeting political reality. Martinez decided to push through a services tax—a sales tax on professional services. Now, on paper, you can make an argument for it. The economy was changing, more service-based, less goods-based. But here's the problem: when you start taxing lawyers, accountants, advertising agencies, and every other professional service under the sun, you've just made enemies of some of the most politically active and well-funded people in the state.
The backlash was immediate and ferocious. They repealed the thing within six months. But the damage was done. Martinez looked like he didn't know what he was doing, like he was experimenting with people's livelihoods. And when 1990 rolled around, here comes Lawton Chiles—'Walkin' Lawton,' they called him because he'd famously walked across the entire state during his Senate campaign. Chiles was the real deal, old-school Southern Democrat, the kind of politician who could shake your hand and make you feel like you'd known him your whole life. Martinez lost by almost thirteen points. It was a landslide.
Now, here's what I always tell people about politics: voters will forgive a lot, but they won't forgive you for messing with their money in ways they don't understand. Martinez learned that lesson the hard way.
003 Carol:
So the Democrats got the mansion back with Chiles. A lot of younger Floridians probably don't remember him well. What was the Chiles era like, and how did it set the stage for what came next?
003 Paul:
Lawton Chiles was the last of a dying breed in Florida Democratic politics—and I mean that literally and figuratively. The man had a gravitas about him. He'd served in the Senate for eighteen years before coming home to run for governor. He understood Florida in a way that some of these newer politicians just don't. He knew the Panhandle. He knew Central Florida. He knew South Florida. He could talk to a cattleman in Okeechobee and then walk into a boardroom in Miami and be equally at home.
His governorship was marked by a few things. He fought the tobacco companies back when that was still a controversial position. He focused on children's issues, education, healthcare. He was a fiscal moderate but a social traditionalist in many ways. And here's the key thing—he barely won reelection in 1994 against Jeb Bush. That race was a nail-biter, less than two points. That should have been the warning sign for Democrats. The state was shifting.
Chiles had health problems, stepped back from running again in '98, and actually died in office just weeks before his term ended. Buddy MacKay finished out those last weeks. But by then, the torch had already passed. Jeb Bush came back in '98, and he wasn't making the same mistakes he'd made four years earlier.
004 Carol:
Let's talk about Jeb Bush then. You mentioned he lost in '94, came back in '98. What changed? And what did his governorship actually accomplish that created this lasting Republican dominance?
004 Paul:
The first thing that changed was Jeb himself. In 1994, he ran as what I'd call an aggressive conservative—very ideological, very combative. He talked about being a "head-banging conservative," and that phrase haunted him. It scared people. Florida isn't a state that takes well to extremes, and Jeb came across as too much, too fast.
By 1998, he'd learned. He softened his image without abandoning his principles. He talked about education, about opportunity, about compassionate conservatism before his brother made that phrase famous nationally. He won convincingly, and then he got to work.
Now, you can debate the merits of his policies, but you can't debate the impact. He transformed public education in Florida—school accountability, standardized testing, the A-to-F grading system for schools. He created school choice programs that became models for other states. He cut taxes repeatedly. He dealt with the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, which was a political minefield that would have destroyed lesser politicians.
Jeb also did something politically genius with his 'One Florida' initiative. When Ward Connerly was pushing to eliminate affirmative action through a ballot initiative, Jeb cut that off by implementing his own executive order ending racial preferences in state contracting and university admissions. Now, critics called it a way to avoid having the issue on the ballot where it might drive minority turnout against Republicans. And you know what? That criticism might have merit. But Jeb got to control the narrative, and that's what smart politicians do.
By the time Jeb left office in 2007, the Republican Party wasn't just competitive in Florida—it was dominant. He rebuilt the infrastructure, he cultivated talent, and he left behind a political machine that kept winning.
005 Carol:
Then Charlie Crist comes in. Now, Crist had quite a political journey before he ever got to the governor's mansion, didn't he? Walk us through how he got there and what happened once he arrived.
005 Paul:
Carol, Charlie Crist is one of the most fascinating political figures in Florida history, and I don't entirely mean that as a compliment. The man has been a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat. He's run for office as all three. At some point, you have to ask yourself: does this person have core beliefs, or does he just have a core need to be in office?
But let's give credit where it's due—Crist paid his dues. He started in the Florida Senate back in 1992, served there for six years, built a reputation as 'Chain Gang Charlie' for being tough on crime. He took a shot at the U.S. Senate in 1998, ran against Bob Graham, and got walloped—lost by twenty-six points. That would have ended most political careers right there. But Crist was resilient, I'll give him that.
After that loss, Jeb Bush gave him a small appointment—deputy secretary over at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Not exactly a powerhouse position, but it kept him in the game. Then in 2000, he ran for Education Commissioner—back when that was still an elected position—and won. He was actually the last person ever elected to that job before it became an appointed position. From there, he ran for Attorney General in 2002 and made history as the first Republican elected to that office since it was created in 1845. Think about that—one hundred and fifty-seven years of Democrats holding that seat, and Crist breaks through.
As Attorney General, he built his brand. Consumer protection, going after price gougers during the hurricanes of 2004, civil rights cases. The tan, the easy smile, 'The People's Attorney'—Floridians liked him. By 2006, he was the obvious choice for governor. Beat Jim Davis handily and had approval ratings in the seventies at one point. Charlie Crist looked like the future of Florida Republican politics.
But here's where the story takes a turn. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, Crist did something that made sense economically but was politically disastrous with his own party: he embraced the Obama stimulus package. Not only did he embrace it, he literally embraced Barack Obama at a rally in Fort Myers. The hug. If you were a Republican in 2009, that hug was like watching your favorite quarterback throw an interception in the Super Bowl. Base Republicans felt betrayed.
So when Crist ran for Senate in 2010, Marco Rubio challenged him from the right, and Crist was getting destroyed in the Republican primary. The Tea Party wave was building, and Crist was on the wrong side of it. Rather than face that loss, he dropped out of the primary and ran as an Independent. Then he lost anyway. Then he became a Democrat. Then he ran for governor again in 2014 as a Democrat against Rick Scott and lost. Ran again in 2022 against DeSantis and got crushed by nearly twenty points. The man just couldn't accept that his political moment had passed.
And I'll tell you something else about Charlie Crist—he represents a type of politician that's almost extinct now. The moderate, flexible, go-along-to-get-along type. Whether that's good or bad depends on your perspective, but in today's polarized environment, there's just no room for it. The parties don't want flexible. They want committed. Crist never figured that out, and he's still running for things—last I heard he was looking at the St. Petersburg mayor's race. Some folks just can't quit.
006 Carol:
Paul, before we move on from the Crist era, I think we need to talk about something that doesn't get discussed enough—the scandals that were rocking the Florida Republican Party during this period. The party chairman went to prison. There was a Ponzi schemer who was practically part of the furniture at GOP events. What was happening behind the scenes?
006 Paul:
Carol, you've touched on what I call the dark days of the Florida Republican Party. And I mean dark. This was a period where the whole thing could have come unraveled. The party that had built this dominant political machine was rotting from the inside, and most voters had no idea how bad it really was.
Let's start with Jim Greer. Charlie Crist handpicked this guy to be chairman of the Republican Party of Florida in January 2007. Greer had been the deputy mayor of Oviedo—a small town in Seminole County—and he'd helped Crist raise money during the 2006 campaign. His reward was the chairmanship of one of the most powerful state parties in America.
Now, what happened next is a case study in what goes wrong when you put the wrong person in a position of trust. Greer lived large. Chartered jets. Five-star hotels. Thousand-dollar dinners. He had pictures of himself hung in the hallways of party headquarters. He wanted people to call him 'Chairman' like it was a royal title. He even had personalized labels put on his bourbon bottles. This wasn't a guy serving the party—this was a guy who thought the party existed to serve him.
But here's where it gets criminal. Greer and his handpicked executive director, Delmar Johnson, created a company called Victory Strategies. The scheme was simple: Victory Strategies would handle major donor fundraising for the party, and in exchange, they'd take a cut—about ten percent. Except nobody at the party knew that Victory Strategies was owned by Greer and Johnson. They were paying themselves for work they were already being paid to do. It was theft, plain and simple.
Greer was forced out in January 2010. By June, the sheriff's deputies showed up at his mansion in Oviedo while he was shaving and hauled him off to jail. Six felony counts—organized scheme to defraud, money laundering, grand theft. He was looking at up to seventy-five years. In the end, he pleaded guilty in February 2013 and got eighteen months. His partner Johnson? He wore a wire against Greer and never got charged. That's how these things work.
007 Carol:
And then there was Scott Rothstein. That name kept coming up in connection with Florida Republican politics. Who was he, and how deep did those connections go?
007 Paul:
Scott Rothstein. Now there's a name that should be taught in business schools as a cautionary tale. This was a Fort Lauderdale attorney who ran what turned out to be a 1.2 billion dollar Ponzi scheme—one of the largest in American history. They called him the Mini-Madoff of South Florida, except Rothstein did it faster and wilder than Bernie Madoff ever did.
Rothstein was everywhere. He had Rolexes, Lamborghinis, a Rolls-Royce, an eighty-seven foot yacht, mansions from Manhattan to Morocco. He owned restaurants, he threw legendary parties, he had billboards of himself with celebrities all over Fort Lauderdale. The man had gold-plated toilet seats—twenty-five thousand dollars each, his and hers. That's not a joke. That's the level of excess we're talking about.
But here's what matters for our conversation: Rothstein was a massive political donor, and he donated heavily to Republicans. The Florida Republican Party got over six hundred thousand dollars from him and his firm. Charlie Crist's Senate campaign got around seven hundred thousand. There's a famous photo of Rothstein and Crist in a warm embrace, and Crist signed it 'Scott—you're amazing!' For Crist's fifty-second birthday in 2008, Rothstein bought a fifty-two thousand dollar cake as a contribution to the state party. Fifty-two thousand dollars for a birthday cake. And all of it was stolen money from investors who thought they were buying into legitimate lawsuit settlements.
When the scheme collapsed in late 2009, Rothstein fled to Morocco. Then he came back, cooperated, and got fifty years in federal prison. But the damage was done. The stench of that dirty money was all over Florida politics. Republicans had to scramble to return donations or give them to charity. It was a massive embarrassment.
And here's the thing that really sticks with me, Carol: these weren't isolated incidents. The Jim Greer scandal and the Rothstein scandal happened at the same time, during the same administration, involving many of the same people. It created a picture of a Republican Party that had become too comfortable, too entitled, too willing to look the other way as long as the money kept flowing and the wins kept coming. Something had to give.