Politics in Florida

Florida is peculiar in being closer to the national average in most demographic characteristics than is any other state. In this sense it is rather like a microcosm of the nation as a whole. The major politcal parties therefore tend to regard it as a testing ground for candidates or issues whose popularity is hard to predict. It matches the nation closely in terms of languages spoken, number and percentage of races, and the distribution among urban, suburban, and rural voters. Florida's population breakdown is 12.5 percent Hispanic, 71 percent other European, 14.5 percent African-American, 1.5 percent Asian-Pacific, and 0.3 percent Native American.

However, one dimension on which it does not match the nation well is in the distribution of ages. Because Florida is a popular state to retire to, 25 percent of its population is over age 65, whereas only 17 percent of the nation's population is over 65. One would usually expect senior citizens to be among the more conservative voters, heavily inclined toward the Republican party. However, bec

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nicipal income, rising welfare costs, rising tax rates, deteriorating infrastructure, and so on and so forth. In 1993 Florida had the highest per-capita rate of violent crime in the country, and Miami was at the center of it. Worse yet, there has been proven corruption in the city government, and that is still being cleaned up. There were many newspaper and magazine articles claiming that Miami was about to declare bankruptcy, sell City Hall to the highest bidder, and declare itself to be out of business. However, as Mark Twain once said about an obituary about him published in error, "Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." Precisely the same sort of dire predictions were being made about New York City around 1975 or so, but it has clearly survived quite well. Miami has also begun the process of turning itself around. Dade County politics are peculiar because it has ethnic characteristics unlike those anywhere else in the United States. It has a large Jewish population and a large African-American population, both of which tend heavily to vote Democratic--but that, of course, is not what's peculiar. The peculiairty is in the Hispanic population, which is among the most solidly conservative and Republican in
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1838
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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