Every Christmas now, for going on twenty years, my mother has always found an autographed book to be one of my Christmas presents.

This year, it was How Florida Happened: The Political Education of Buddy MacKay by, of course, Buddy MacKay.

Buddy was the last Democratic governor of Florida – he served for only a few months, having taken office when Walkin’ Lawton Chiles died just before his term ended. Buddy had been his lieutenant governor. Unfortunately, by that time, Buddy had already lost the election to Jeb Bush, who would go on to lay the groundwork for Florida’s current economic and educational failures.

A good man, Buddy MacKay was the last of an old breed of Florida politician who got pushed out the extremists and the lobbyists who now run Tallahassee as their own, private fiefdom.