Well… no regrets. In a district that had 13,500 more Republicans than Democrats, I got 21,934 votes to Peter Nehr’s 23,419. However, more than half of the eligible voters didn’t vote and about 20,000 voters that were expected to vote, based on the last Florida gubernatorial election, didn’t vote either.  We will be looking at these numbers this week and trying to make sense out of where we lost votes.  While nobody has a crystal ball, we will be able to see what precincts we won and what we lost, how that correlates to our efforts in those precincts and, most important, who didn’t show up – Democrats, Republicans, independents, women, men, old, young, etc.  We knew the numbers we had to hit with Republicans and independents and we felt we had them about a month before.

So, I thank every one of you that supported me.  Your confidence that I could win was accurate, your emails and phone calls were inspiring and moving. Everybody is asking if I’ll do it again, that I now have name recognition, a reputation of integrity and substance, and am also known by the unions and lobbyists.  It is tempting.  Everyone that devoted major chunks of their lives to this campaign wants to start up again.  The reality though is that my opponent will be an incumbent.  He raised $300,000 to my $37,000 this cycle and as an incumbent he will have half a million come 2008.  He will also not have to fight off three opponents in a primary as he did during this election.  He will almost certainly get the endorsement from both local newspapers.  These are daunting obstacles.  We will be watching what he does and preparing for the possibilities.  But the answer is uncertain right now.  As far as other races, there aren’t many. But we will be exploring.

As far as how I feel, I feel at ease.  It has been a very intense two years. I didn’t realize the intensity and speed that we were moving at until we stopped. Suddenly, I realized it’s fall with winter and Christmas around the corner.  My orange tree has fruit and I never even smelled the blossoms.  All the bulbs were burnt out in my outdoor garage lights and my son moved back home to his old bedroom. I have to weed my garden and I have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do.  This whole experience has changed me. I learned that you make more friends by making fewer enemies, to be a bridge means learning how to speak without being a divider. And most of all, I learned what my good friend Joe Pinner, the voice of South Carolina TV at WIS TV for over 45 years has been telling my students every year: It’s all about integrity. I have always had the philosophy that I expect nothing from anybody and that I appreciate anything anyone does for me. Some people have said they wished they had done more. Well, hold on to that thought and thanks for everything you did.