Miles Behind Her, Miles Ahead. Nan Rich Vows to Stay in Race

There are no more Tarzan calls over the loudspeaker.  No smell of funnel cakes and burgers from the café.  The caged animals are gone and the rides are shut down.  A small crowd stands quietly, hunched against a chilly fall breeze, waiting for the senator to arrive.

Florida’s oldest tourist attraction is closed for good.  Silver Springs Park has been turned back over to the state, which will remove the cages and turnstiles and let it return to the wild land it once was.  The glass-bottom boats will still run though, gliding visitors over the five spring vents that give the area its name.

That’s why the biologist, the environmental engineer, the retired math professor, the artist, and the activist are here: to take state Senator Nan Rich on a tour of the springs and pitch their case for new water policy in Florida.

She arrives with her assistant; cordial but all business.  They show her the algae-covered bottom, the discoloration of the water, the lack of fish.  For the next five hours, someone is at her elbow all the time, talking hydrology, history, biology, and business.  Rich listens intently to each person, never rushing anyone.

She ignores the one journalist, focusing instead on her hosts, until once, in the middle of a story about her senate days, she turns, looks the reporter in the eye, and says, “This is off the record.”  It isn’t a question.

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Rich was invited on the tour that day because she’s running for governor of Florida.  She has been since 2012 when she was term-limited out after 12 years in the state legislature.  She’s a liberal Democrat in a “purple” state that has twice failed to elect a moderate Democrat (Alex Sink) as governor.  She clocked three terms in the state legislature, had a long career heading social justice organizations, and raised four kids while running a family business in South Florida.  Yet her bona fides haven’t been good enough for the Florida Democratic Party, which Rich supporters say has ignored their candidate.  Emily’s List, the national group working to get Democratic women elected, hasn’t endorsed her, although it did for her three prior elections. When former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist threw his hat in the ring late last fall – as a Democrat this time – many felt he’s the only one who can beat tea-party Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Scott.  There’ve been calls for Rich to step aside, but she has refused.  Recent polls show voters aren’t even sure who she is.

So who is Nan Rich, and why the hell won’t she get out of Charlie Crist’s way?

Rich was in the minority in Republican-led Florida all of her legislative career. When she was term-limited out in 2012, she said she looked at her colleagues around her, and thought: “Florida’s child welfare system is broken.  We have the highest number of elderly people in history on waiting lists for home care, and Gov. Scott vetoed the funds to help them.  Women’s rights have been under assault for years.  We have no environmental plan.  And then the governor turned away millions in federal Medicaid funds.  I looked around and didn’t see anyone who was going to take up these issues, and I decided ‘We need a reset in Florida politics.’”

Rich said the issues she is passionate about were developed long before she even thought of politics.  In the 1970s, she was the PTA president in the Dade County public schools her four children attended, and then later got involved in the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), both of which exposed her to social issues.  She eventually ran several organizations dealing with juvenile justice, preschool , and foster care for juvenile delinquents.  She founded the first Guardian Ad Litem program in the state.

“I was always a community activist.  I don’t think of myself as a politician.  I pride myself on learning and I don’t get a lot of [media] coverage for it,” said Rich.

Attorney Jodi Wilkof volunteered on one of Rich’s early campaigns over a decade ago, and stayed in touch with her throughout her Tallahassee days. Wilkof said, “She has an incredible ability to shift through a huge amount of information and remember it.  It’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met.  And she’s a real person.  She’s a mother, a grandmother, and has an elderly mother she takes care of.  She’s facing the same issues me and my friends are facing.”

Wilkoff also has a personal memory of Rich.  Every year when Rich came to Tallahassee for the legislative session, she invited Wilkoff and her young son to come visit her at the capital.  She always brought the boy something .  “If it was a book, she read it to him. If it was a puzzle, she would work it with him.  Children are her true passion, even when the doors are closed and no one is around.”

But before she was the first female Senate Minority Leader; before she was the first Florida president of the National Council of Jewish Women; before Hilary Clinton invited her to Arkansas to implement a successful preschool program; Rich was just another kid at Biscayne Elementary School in Miami Beach.  It was the 1950s and Miami was a dream city where the Rat Pack cruised through the lobbies of the glitzy beach hotels.  Her grandmother ran a boutique at the Hollywood Beach Hotel.  Her parents ran the women’s clothing store Sandra Post, which eventually had 11 locations.

Rich, her two sisters, and all the neighborhood kids were out on bikes and roller skates until after dark.  Then they’d walk each other home through back yards, calling out “Cheerio!” to let the others know they had made it home.  “It was a different time,” she said.  “We were constantly outside with other kids.  You learned to get along with a lot of different people.

“And parents didn’t chauffer as much back then.  The bus came every hour and if you missed it, you walked.”

In high school, there were dances.  “My parents were great dancers.  My father got all my friends together and taught us the Rhumba and the Jitterbug.  People still remember that.”

Rich went to the University of Florida in the early ‘60’s, and it was there she first saw Silver Springs.  She and friends would drive down for the day to swim, picnic, and ride the glass bottom boats.  She remembers the pristine nature, the white sandy bottom of the springs. “I was so amazed.  We didn’t have springs in South Florida.”

After three years at University of Florida she married David Rich.  They ran a floor covering business together while raising a family.

Now she has grandchildren in the public schools, which makes five generations of her family in the same part of Florida.   In a state with a high number of transients, Rich has a long- term view.

She was “shocked” last November when she toured Silver Springs.  “I just couldn’t believe all the algae covering the eel grass,” she said, which is exactly what springs advocates have been trying to show politicians and others.  Putnam County environmentalist Karen Chadwick said, “We’ve invited Gov. Scott and Charlie Crist, too, but neither one has come.  Only Senator Rich.”

That’s pretty much been Rich’s plan in her now 22 month run – to hit the road and build grassroots support.  She’s driven 130,000 miles attending events, made 300 visits, and traveled to 45 out of 67 Florida counties.  “Wherever I’m invited, I go.”

A March University of North Florida poll had both good news and bad news for Rich. The good news was that Crist, her primary opponent, had fallen 12 points against Scott since the fall, to a 33/33 split.  And another third of voters were dissatisfied with both Scott and Crist.  The bad news was Rich wasn’t even named in the poll.

“It’s possible for a liberal to win,” said political science Professor Mike Binder who conducted the poll.  “But she has the classic problem in politics: no name recognition, so no coverage.  No coverage, so no name recognition.  She’s running against a former governor with name recognition and political connections.”

Yet, Binder also points out that while a primary often has low voter turnout, the base that does turn out is likely to be “more ideologically favorable to her.”

Rich defends her low-budget, personal outreach campaign.  “President Obama’s reelection proves grassroots outreach works.  People are tired of big money buying elections.  Gone are the days where you can just sit in a room and buy ads.  You need to reach people.”  Besides, she added, pointing to moderate Alex Sink’s recent losses, “I can get the base out.”

In the meantime, 72-year-old Rich’s friends are at the pool, playing golf, or traveling.  And she’s traveling, too: I-95, I-4, I-75, I-10, and Alligator Alley.  She says she’ll stay in the race until the August primary.  It’s the fight of her career, but she has an answer for those who think she should step aside.

“I have the knowledge, experience and passion,” Rich said.  “Why not me?”