Lawton “Bud” Chiles III files for Florida Governor seat as NPA

By Chris Cillizza
The Washington Post

Florida now has not one but two independent candidates with well-known names running statewide as Lawton “Bud” Chiles III, son of the late Gov. “Walkin’” Lawton Chiles, officially kicked off his bid for governor yesterday — opting to run as a “no party affiliation” candidate instead of pursuing a primary challenge against Democratic frontrunner Alex Sink.

In a Web video announcing his candidacy, Chiles takes a page out of his father’s book, telling viewers he’s been “literally walking across the state of Florida” over the past several months on behalf of education issues. The elder Chiles famously trekked 1,003 miles across the state during his 1970 Senate bid.

Florida Democrats are likely none too pleased about Chiles’ decision to run as an independent as it has the potential to draw votes away from Sink. It remains to be seen how serious a candidate the younger Chiles will be; a Florida Democratic operative recently told the Fix that Dems in the state were “rolling their eyes” at a potential Chiles bid, adding that “Bud is not his father.”

As a candidate, Chiles will seek to occupy the curious position of both the consummate insider — due to his political pedigree – and independent outsider as he tells supporters in his kickoff video that as governor, he’d “be beholden to no one but the people of Florida.” (And, yes, that sentiment is taken nearly verbatim from Gov. Charlie Crist who stunned the political world when he announced he would run for the Senate as an independent.)

Unlike Chiles’ aborted 2006 run for governor –he dropped out when he realized he hadn’t been resident in the state long enough to run — he is hoping that the anti-politician sentiment in the country will give him a chance.

But Chiles faces big logistical hurdles: he’ll be up against big-spending major-party candidates — state Attorney General Bill McCollum and former health care CEO Rick Scott are running for the GOP nod — in an expensive state where he’ll have to build a campaign organization from scratch. And, there’s only five months remaining until Election Day.