The Repugs rule the state and all the special interest money goes to them. Chameleon Charlie has even cut into the trial lawyers group by getting backing from the head of Morgan and Morgan (a supposed Democrat). Kottkamp, his LG pick, is a lawyer from Morgan and Morgan. He has the backing of the major developers in state. Both Mel Sembler and Donald Trump have been running fund raisers for him. He has the backing of all the major lobbyists in the state. A fellow named Ballard, major lobbyist for Florida Power and Light, recently hosted a big fundraiser for Crist.
Since the legislature, thanks to gerrymandering, is dominated by Repugs, they changed the campaign finance laws to benefit them. They raised the limit for an individual candidate to 21 million from 8.8 million last year. Once a candidate reaches the max limit, state funding will kick in to the opponent. By setting the limit so high, they keep Davis' state funding at a lower level.
The Repugs are also laundering special interest money through their state party. If you check out the campaign finance report on the Crist campaign
(LINK) you can see over a million from the state party. The state party just accepted over a million from a special interest 527 that has Tampa Electric Co, US Sugar, and a major developer as it's primary donors. Crist can then take in special interest money without showing it's ties to his campaign.
You add all this to a bruising primary that left Jim Davis' campaign broke and weakened after fighting special interest 527 attack ads financed by the big sugar corporations. I'm surprised Jim is polling within 10 of Chameleon Charlie.
Looking at Chameleon Charlie's money sources. We can expect that he'll work to overturn some of Jebbie's tort reforms (which may not be a bad thing). He won't do anything to clean up the 'glades. He won't do anything to prevent urban sprawl. He won't appoint folks who will better regulate the our utility rates. He probably will support the spread of gambling in Florida. Chameleon Charlie has shown that he will say and do anything to win an election.
Jim is a strong candidate. He has good ideas. He just released a plan to lower property insurance
(LINK). He is doing all the right things by bringing in every national Democrat figure he can find to help in fund raising and publicity. However, he needs funds to get out his message. Since Crist has all the big money donors tied up, the only way Jim can do that is by our individual contributions. If folks on DU can send anything to the campaign, it would help. At least stop by and post some postive stuff on the campaign's blog
(LINK). The bright side is that if Jim manages to pull off an upset and win this thing, we'll have Governor that does not owe anything to special interest groups.