Then she said summer, which turned into September. All year, she had agonized: Should she run for governor again? Finally, with time to launch a campaign running out, Alex Sink broke the news Sept. Instead, she would continue to work with entrepreneurs through her Florida Next Foundation and support candidates "who I believe share my vision.
The announcement wasn't entirely unexpected. It was widely known that Sink's kids, both in graduate school in Gainesville, didn't want her to run.
Neither did her year-old dad. They knew how much money she would need, how ugly campaigns could be. But there was another, more private factor that weighed on Sink's decision, and she thought about it every time she walked into her closet and forced herself not to look to the right. This is the story of Sink's nine months without her husband, Bill McBride, the private journey of a public person working out her next role.
Adelaide Alexander "Alex" Sink is 65, but looks years younger. A staunch Democrat, she has served as the state's chief financial officer, president of Bank of America's Florida operations, chairwoman of Florida's Nature Conservancy. She got within 60, votes of becoming the state's first female governor. When the election was over, she went home to Bill.
He had run for governor himself in , losing to Jeb Bush. Throughout their year marriage, Bill had been Sink's political partner, her sounding board, her fundraiser. And cheerleader. As recently as last Thanksgiving, he was encouraging her to run in Friends and family sustained Sink through the first numb weeks, but it wasn't long before her admirers began tugging at her.
They cornered her at the airport, the post office, the gym: "Please, Alex, we need you! Florida needs you! She knew she had the support, believed she could help improve Florida's education, economy and transportation. She wants Scott out of office. She even pictured herself moving into the Governor's Mansion.
Figuring out whether to run again, Sink said, was "the hardest decision I ever had to make. She is still trying to clean out his half of their home office, wondering whether to sell his Gators tickets, struggling to ride the waves of grief that sideswipe her.
She still sleeps closest to the bathroom, on her side of their bed. Still thinks of things to tell him in the dark. Over the years they were often apart, traveling. She wakes sometimes, hoping he has come home. In many ways, Sink's journey parallels that of other women who have transitioned from wife to widow, from a lifetime of "we" to a new normal, "me.
Like Sink, she lost a partner who shared her professional success and had to console a grown daughter and examine her new identity. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. After Bill's funeral, someone gave Didion's book to Sink. She hasn't opened it. She gets by on careful calculations: When you go to a fundraiser, drive yourself so you can leave if the tears come.
Schedule meals with friends so you don't have to eat alone. Exercise, pack your schedule, travel. Stay in hotels because then you won't wake up and wonder why Bill isn't there. On their last day together, Dec. Sink grew up there, in a three-story, 19th century farmhouse built by her great-grandfather and his brother, the original Siamese twins.
Chang and Eng Bunker toured with P. Barnum and used their sideshow earnings to buy a acre tobacco farm. Bill McBride, a powerful lawyer who unsuccessfully tried to unseat then-Gov. Jeb Bush in and later watched his wife, Alex Sink, also run for governor, has died. He was As word got out Sunday about his death, McBride was praised by political figures from both parties. McBride, a Marine who earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam, was a powerful figure in legal and business circles before he ran for governor.
After moving to Florida 26 years ago, she rose to the top position in Bank of America's Florida operations. She retired from banking roughly 10 years ago, and settled with her family in Thonotosassa, a rural area outside Tampa.
Smith, at the University of Florida, said this part of Sink's narrative might not ring so true with voters. Sink said she finally considered a run as Chief Financial Officer when several friends approached her five years ago and told her Florida was in desperate need of someone "looking out for our money. Much like her rival, Scott, she said she saw problems with the political system in Florida, and wanted to jump in and fix things.
Coming from the business world, Sink said she was more than a little surprised to see just how state government runs. She recalls when a glitch was discovered in the state's accounting department early in her tenure. She said she asked to see the department's last audit, in order to find out if the glitch had been caught previously. David Clark, who has worked extensively with Sink's staff as a Cabinet aide in the Department of Environmental Protection, said Sink brings a CEO's mentality to running the state's finances.
Meanwhile, she has brought together a staff with diverse backgrounds, said Clark, who is set to enter Officer Candidate School with the U. She's surrounded herself with a very diverse group of people and it's worked well for her. At the same time, said state Rep.
It is something he has seen firsthand, particularly through his work as a ranking member on the Government Operations and Appropriations Committee, he said.
It would be an important skill, given the fact that Sink would be working with a Republican-controlled Legislature, if elected. The son of a TV repairman, he played fullback and linebacker in high school and held a variety of jobs to support himself. His parents were divorced in his freshman year at UF and a knee injury derailed his football career, but he followed a well-worn path to politics as a member of the Blue Key honor society and president of a leading campus fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega.
After returning and finishing law school, he became a civic leader in such organizations as United Way and the Florida Holocaust Museum and was a sought-after fundraiser for Democratic candidates. He was a senior partner at the time of his death.
Rick Scott, who defeated Alex Sink in , said: "Bill McBride was a great lawyer, a devoted public servant, a veteran and a talented leader. Said U. Bill Nelson in a statement: "Bill McBride was larger than life. He was one of the great business, legal and political leaders of Florida, and he is a friend that many of us will miss. Democratic political strategist Steve Schale said a cup of coffee with McBride at his Tampa law office two weeks ago turned into a two-hour conversation — mostly not about politics.
Schale said McBride spoke proudly of son Bert studying to be a lawyer and daughter Lexi's recent completion of her third year of medical school. He was in a good mood as always," Schale recalled. McBride and Sink lived in an elegant home with a large wraparound porch on 30 acres overlooking Lake Thonotosassa near Tampa.
But he drove a Ford pickup with more than , miles on it and liked to talk about the common sense he got from ordinary people at the nearby Circle K convenience store. In a lengthy profile of McBride in the Times in , longtime friend Steve Brewer, a retired Busch Gardens executive, said McBride had a genuine feel for people from all walks of life.
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