Live Oak — Ready for Biking Mike?

That would be Independent gubernatorial candidate Michael E. Arth, who pedaled through Live Oak last week en route to Pensacola, part of a two-month trek that started in Key West. The trip was inspired by Lawton Chiles’ 1,000 mile walk from Pensacola to Key West in his 1970 successful run for U.S. Senate. Arth is accompanied by a film crew -- the campaign will be captured in a documentary -- and staffers. The whole gang stopped in at the Dixie Grill for lunch and we chatted with them.

Arth isn’t your typical candidate. He’s never been elected to office, and doesn’t have big bucks behind him. He originally planned to run as a Democrat, but was told by party bosses he just wasn’t rich enough.

“The political system is even more closed than I thought it was,” he said. “I was literally told ‘You can’t run unless you have $3 million and the media’s not going to write one single word about you unless you had those millions of dollars.’”

Arth’s résumé is extensive. He’s worked as a policy analyst, animator, developer and urban designer. In 2001, he and his wife moved from California to Deland, where he moved into a dilapidated home in the heart of a neighborhood known locally as “crack town.” That was until Arth bought 32 crumbling homes and businesses and restored them. Now the area’s called the Garden District.

But can a self-proclaimed dreamer compete against the big names for governor? Arth says, why not? The time has never been better for Independents like him.

“I am not a career politician who has learned to keep the debate corralled within the narrow range of issues shaped by personal handlers and the powers-that-be,” he wrote on his Web site, michaelearth.org. “Because of this, some of my positions may be startling to people not accustomed to hearing honest talk from a viable candidate. Sadly, this illustrates how far we have gotten from the constitutional and democratic goal of bringing the best ideas forward so the public can be informed enough to choose viable leaders.”



BOX:

DECIDE FOR YOURSELF



Here are Arth’s positions, as taken from his website, on some of the day’s most-debated issues:



Abortion: “We should do what we can to prevent it ... I support a woman's right to choose. The government has no right sticking its nose into a woman's womb.”



Economics: “We should run our state like any prudent investor – put money into reserve in fat years and use those reserves in the lean years.”



Education: “Our primary and secondary schools generally assume that children in each grade are to be taught the same. One size does not fit all. If we handed all fourth–graders size 6 shoes, almost no one would have a good fit. In the past, it was not practical to have a different approach with every child. This problem will be solved with personalized, interactive, online teaching. This should be combined with small neighborhood schools in order to build socializing skills and help solidify communities.



Health care: “Floridians spend $7,500 per person per year on health care. Europeans spend half that, cover everyone, get better care, and live longer. Our private health care system is broken and tinkering will not fix it.”



Immigration: “Florida and the U.S. have population growth rates that exceed any major industrialized country on the planet. Immigration is an overpopulation problem more than anything else. Human overpopulation is a grave threat to us and other species.”