Like a high-speed train running off the rails, last week the specter of High Speed Rail reared its futuristic caboose again, this time with more promises from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist that all is not lost. In some Washington D.C. elbow rub, Crist was able to ascertain that the $2.4 billion given up on the transportation project when Gov. Rick Scott refused federal dollars three years ago was still a thing. Details were not necessarily provided, but the former governor turned hopeful governor has been pulling the rope on this train horn for some time. Could he know something we don’t know?
The regurgitated news cycle came amid other key stumping issues typically kept for editorial board meetings, the kinds of meetings that both Crist and Scott have been obliged to attend in the closing miles of this contentious statewide race. Also key on Crist’s agenda was Medicaid expansion. Crist told the Orlando Sentinel that, “As the richest country in the world, we ought to be able to provide for something which is a civil right, and that is health care.” He also reiterated that Medicaid expansion could produce as many as 120,000 jobs.
Scott, for his part, played the bleak realism card, even after supporting the expansion for a hot minute two years ago. His office told reporters that expansion “could not be accomplished on a whim form the executive office. It requires legislative action.” But what strange bedfellows a newly Democratic Crist would make with the Tallahassee establishment.
