
And he has gone to great pains to solicit the support of individuals and groups he stiff-armed in 1994. For a running-mate, he came up with a smiley-faced educator who's about as scary as a Teletubby. This Jeb Bush is a warm-and-fuzzy moderate, a public-spirited guy who spends his spare time in inner-city charter schools and African-American churches. But in all other respects, he seems to be a different person. The Jeb Bush running for governor this year looks about the same, although he pouts less.

When a black voter asked the 1994 Bush what he would do for the state's African-American population, he said "probably nothing." For a running-mate, he came up with a wild-eyed reactionary who frightened even many of his Republican colleagues in Tallahassee. In 1994, the gubernatorial candidate claiming to be Jeb Bush was an arrogant, thin-skinned ideologue who bragged that he was more conservative than his father, the former president and CIA director. Take this fellow claiming to be Jeb Bush, for example. Maybe some of the other candidates on the fall ballot are impostors, too. If the man who everybody thought was a congressman's son turns out to be Danny DeVito, then all bets are off.

In fact, he reminded me more of DeVito than he did his father.Ĭould Mike Bilirakis be part of a grand conspiracy to steal a local legislative seat for an impostor from New York? Wouldn't he recognize his own son? Or could it be that Diane Ellis has been playing solitaire till dawn with a deck of 51?Įither way, the controversy should make the Times' perennial Know Your Candidates supplement even more essential reading than usual. Like the actor Danny DeVito, the alleged Bilirakis was short and amiable. The man purporting to be Gus Bilirakis came to see us the other day. Yet that is the spectacular charge made by Bilirakis/Divito's Democratic opponent, Diane Ellis. Mike Bilirakis, might actually be an impostor from New York named Danny Divito. But then it never would have occurred to me that the man purporting to be Gus Bilirakis, Republican legislative candidate and son of U.S. Maybe that sounds a little far-fetched to you.

#Playing solitaire till dawn with a deck of 51 tv
senator is really a moon-faced character actor named Richard Paul, whom you may remember from his role as the craven mayor on the old Carter Country TV show. But I happen to know that the real Bob Graham has worn one of his tacky Florida ties every waking minute for the past 20 years.īased on that evidence, I think I understand what Crist is coyly alluding to when he says Graham has "changed": The person claiming to be our U.S. Has Graham changed? How can we really know what becomes of these folks we elect and send off to Washington? How do we even know they're still the same people after a few years inside the Beltway?Ĭrist's ad features what appears to be a photo of Graham in a law enforcement uniform. I couldn't quite figure out how Graham was supposed to have changed, because Crist was accusing him of having made some blunder about 15 years ago, but it caused me to won-der.
