Bill McCollum tackles health-care reform, while Alex Sink manages office supplies

Aaron Deslatte Capitol View
It makes little sense these days for politicians to be creatively frugal when this is how the polls — i.e., the voters — respond.

Look at Florida's race for governor. The Republican running, Attorney General Bill McCollum, has been seizing on big, national issues that the Governor's Office has little direct involvement in — primarily, the national health-care debate — and lambasting Democratic positions on them. Meanwhile, Democratic Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has been playing small ball.

Two weeks ago, Sink said that with advice from businesses like Publix, Disney World and Rosen Hotels & Resorts, she had revamped her office's risk-management procedures in ways that could save the state $12 million a year by, among other things, reducing injury risks to state employees.

Last week, she announced her office was hoarding paper clips. Seriously. She gathered the Capitol press corps to announce she had saved taxpayers $200,000 by ordering her workers to stop buying "non mission-critical office supplies" and instead stockpile extra paperclips, pens and notepads.

"Obviously, times are tough here in state government," Sink said.

If other agencies took the same approach to paper clips, Sink estimated the state could save $14 million a year. "Think about how many schoolteachers that is," she said.

At least in theory, voters demand that politicians be responsible stewards of the taxpayer dime and search for "common-sense solutions" to budget problems.

But it looks like McCollum got some sage political advice — and lots more public attention — when he decided to challenge the legality of the proposed federal health-care overhaul.

The issue has helped vault him to a 41 percent-to-31 percent lead over Sink, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll. Sink held a 38 percent-to-34 percent lead in the same poll last June.

For sure, a number of factors can explain the shift, and McCollum is benefiting from both the anti-Democrat animus as well as his better name-recognition.

Sink, meanwhile, has refused to wade too deep into the health-care debate. Instead, she talks about nickel-and-dime cost-savings.

Florida Republicans were quick to pounce with a video mocking Sink's paper-clip management, asking, "Are these the best ideas Florida Democrats have to offer?"

On the other hand, though, McCollum hasn't yet proposed a single budget-cutting or job-creating idea, focusing instead on his virulent opposition to the Democrats' health-care expansion.

McCollum cites constitutional issues, declaring that Congress has no enumerated power to impose a tax on individuals who don't buy health insurance, as the current version of the bill would do.

But he was annoyed when asked by a reporter last week if he would also object to Florida instituting a state-run health-insurance program to cover its 4 million uninsured residents similar to what Massachusetts has done.

Voters thus far take McCollum's side.

The Quinnipiac poll found that Florida voters disagreed 57 percent to 32 percent with the health-care-reform plan being considered by President Barack Obama and Congress. And 73 percent of Republicans thought it was a "good idea" for McCollum to sue if the plan mandates that individuals buy health insurance.

But is Sink's problem the lack of coverage, or are voters genuinely less impressed with a politician scrounging for pocket change?

"Voters want governors that handle big things," said Peter Brown, Quinnipiac's assistant polling director. "They like her; they just like him more."