The Political Whore

Jeff Kottkamp took his whacks for misusing the state airplane earlier this year, so it will be interesting to see how (if??) the public reacts to his announcement that he wants to be the GOP nominee for attorney general in 2010.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp filed paperwork today to run for attorney general in 2010, even as an ethics complaint over his use of state planes remains unresolved.

Kottkamp, a trial attorney who has served as Florida’s second-in-command since January 2007, told reporters that the attorney general job is the “culmination of a lot of the experiences I’ve had in my life, it’s something that I feel passionate about.”

Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp was in Tampa on Wednesday to talk to about 350 business leaders at the Florida TARP Forum when I got a chance to grab him after his cheerleading speech (”This too shall pass” he said of the current recession). I asked him whether the Crist Administration would support the loony idea winging through the Legislature to relax development regulations to spur more new home construction.

Even Kottkamp had to admit that Florida housing is already remarkably overbuilt. “We have an inventory of about 300,000 homes right now,” the high-flying lieutenant governor said backstage. In his cheeriest voice, he said what we need is to market aggressively that inventory to people who want to move or buy a second or vacation home. No better deals than in Florida right now, Kottkamp chirped.

But does the administration buy the theory that we need to stimulate more housing construction by making it easier to overdraw water supplies, kill endangered species and destroy wetlands?

“We’d have to see the [actual legislation] to really comment,” he said.