As As Rudy's campaign crashes and burns here in Florida, he's been busy on the stump for a national catastrophic insurance fund, knowing it will appeal to voters here who are facing rising insurance costs in light of increases in the number and severity of storms and floods in recent years. Rudy's latest ads here trumpet him as the only candidate who supports such a fund, claiming "Only Rudy has a plan to lower insurance rates." Actually, McCain has said he is open to the idea of regional fund pools for coastal states, tougher regulation on insurers, and privatizing portions of FEMA in order to keep costs down, though he opposes a national fund, saying it's too expensive and taxpayers in other regions shouldn't have to absorb the costs. Romney has said he'd consider a fund, and Huckabee hasn't weighed in.
Such a fund is pretty widely supported here as a way to keep insurance costs down for homeowners, and it's a major priority for Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, whose endorsement all the candidates are coveting here. Rudy's clearly hoping this issue will set him apart from the others in a race that's very quickly passing him by, and that it might win him Crist's endorsement. But as McCain has pointed out, this plan is pretty ridiculous, since it's supposed to be the reason we have FEMA in the first place. Of course FEMA is in need of some reformation (though not the privatization McCain is calling for), but fixing the agency seems to make more sense than creating a multi-billion dollar new federal program.
More importantly though, maybe Rudy should spend some time talking about how he's going to protect Florida from these catastrophes in advance. In this coastal, oft-ravaged state, you'd think that climate change and its effects – stronger, more frequent storms and flooding -- would come up more often from the candidates on the stump, but only McCain and Huckabee ever even bring it up. Giuliani, meanwhile, says he recognizes it's a problem, but opposes measures to do anything about it.
--Kate Sheppard
