State Sen. Greg Evers missed another self-imposed deadline to announce his political intentions for the 2016 election cycle, winning me a bet with Daily News investigative reporter Tom McLaughlin.
Evers’ indecisiveness is garnering attention outside of Northwest Florida. From Peter Schorsch’s weekly “Tallahassee Takeaways” column:
Is State Sen. Greg Evers becoming the Hamlet of the Florida Panhandle?
Reports first floated last year that the Okaloosa County Republican was toying with the idea of running for Santa Rosa County sheriff, to replace the retiring incumbent there.
He was later mentioned as eyeing the job of Okaloosa County’s property appraiser. And Pensacola political blogger Rick Outzen added a 2018 run for Commissioner of Agriculture to the mix, noting that Evers is a farmer by trade.
Now, Evers has blown his own deadline on whether to enter the race to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller in northwest Florida despite his flying to Washington last month to do “research.â€
Because of state Senate redistricting, all senators have to run again this year. If Evers retakes his seat, he wouldn’t be term-limited there till 2020.
But his lack of decisiveness probably contributed to one potential candidate not running for Evers’ Senate district: State Rep. Clay Ingram, a Pensacola Republican, decided to run for one more term in the House instead.
Meanwhile, Evers’ supporters privately fear his “enterprises of great pith and moment,†to quote the Bard’s great play, are “los(ing) the name of action.â€