Let the games begin.

Florida has never been blessed with Lincolnesque candidates for public office; in fact, by our standards, a politician’s term is considered successful if it doesn't end with a conviction.

It seems that the primary races of 2010 offer some particularly stellar examples of mediocrity, both on the part of candidates and voters.

One of the Republican candidates for governor, Rick Scott, has set about to buy the office with his own money. As if that weren’t enough, it appears that he made said millions while remaining ignorant of the fact that individuals within the health insurance company he headed were committing fraud. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for someone who seeks to be the chief executive of a large state.

On the Democratic side, another candidate with too much money on his hands, Jeff Greene, is attempting to purchase the U.S. Senate nomination. His conflicting accounts about a yacht vacation to Cuba read like a collection of Hemingway short stories. That both these gentlemen are front-runners thanks to their ad buys says as much about the electorate as it does about them.

At the local level, a Democratic acquaintance of mine lives in Florida House District 90, and faces a dilemma. “If Irv Slosberg doesn’t value my vote enough to try to bribe me with a corned-beef sandwich or a free schlepper bag this time around,” he said disdainfully, “then he doesn’t deserve it. At the same time, how can I cast my ballot for somebody whose campaign slogan is, ‘Send Klassy to Tallahassee?’”

Surely, a conundrum the Founding Fathers couldn’t possibly have envisioned.