By U.S. House of Representatives – [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54952433
Making her formal announcement in the Miami area which her father Bob Graham represented for years in the state legislature before becoming Governor and a US Senator, Graham embraced progressive themes particularly on the environment which is more of a hot-button issue in southeast Florida than in the rest of the state.
“We all know climate change is real. It’s already harming our state — tides are rising in Miami, fires are ravaging our forests,” Graham said. “But instead of facing reality, Donald Trump calls climate change ‘a hoax,’ and Rick Scott doesn’t call it anything at all – literally banning those the words, ‘climate change’ from our state government.”
“As governor, I won’t just criticize this culture of teaching to the test. I will end it,” Graham said. “Because high-stakes standardized testing has led us to one-size-fits-all learning. Yet our children, parents and teachers are not one-dimensional. Our children, parents, and teachers are not standardized. I will work with the legislature – and do whatever it takes, including using the governor’s line-item veto to end high-stakes testing.”
Graham also took a real shot at sitting Governor Rick Scott’s constant mantra of jobs- a mantra that has led Scott to abandon traditional conservative economic policies of late and embrace full throttle crony capitalism and corporate welfare which is more in the neo-liberal ideological space than the conservative one.
“Instead of passing commonsense economic policies, like raising the minimum wage and paid sick leave, Rick Scott repeats, ‘Jobs, jobs, jobs!’ — as in you’ll need three jobs just to get by,”
The Florida Squeeze 
Sorry to have to tell you there will be no favorite in the 2018 Governors race. This has been a toss up the past 2 elections and 2018 will be decided on issues not identity politics. Go Gwen!!!!
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Yeah, we’ve heard this song before from Gwen Graham. Nice tough progressive words. Once got into office her neoliberal to conservative actions betrayed those words, and I see nothing from her that leads me to believe that this time will be any different. As they say, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
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Wendy, you really know very little about Gwen. She is anti-corporate and anti-war. She is a true public servant that is all about the people of Florida. Whether you vote for her in the primary or not I hope you vote for Democrats up and down the ticket. Our people in Florida are counting on everyone to clean house and stop the insane agenda of the Republicans.
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I have little doubt that she believes most of her rhetoric, but as a Rep Graham proved that she is perfectly willing to betray voters/democratic principles to the benefit of corporate donors. We need a candidate who will stand strong– she doesn’t seem to be the one.
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