TALLAHASSEE, Florida – Former Florida Gov. Buddy MacKay, who lost to Jeb Bush in 1998 but still served 23 days in office after the sudden death of Gov. Lawton Chiles, has died. He was 91 years old.
The former Democratic governor took a nap after lunch at his home in Ocklawaha, Florida, on Tuesday and never woke up, his son Ken MacKay told The Associated Press. All of the governor’s adult children were present at the time, he said.
“It was a very peaceful end to a great life,” said MacKay, who hopes his father will be remembered as a defender of Florida’s environment and an advocate for minorities.
Floridians honored MacKay not only for his brief service as governor, but also for his time as a state legislator, congressman and diplomat.
“We mourn the passing of Buddy MacKay,” Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X. “A U.S. Air Force veteran and lifelong public servant, MacKay was dedicated to our country and our state. Rest in peace”.
In a social media post, Bush offered his condolences to MacKay’s family, saying his former competitor had served the state “with honor and distinction.”
MacKay, Chiles’ two-term lieutenant governor, had been defeated by Bush in the 1998 gubernatorial election when Chiles died six weeks later, on December 12, 1998, in the governor’s mansion. That put MacKay in the top job for three weeks, where he focused on overseeing the final stages of the transition to the Bush administration.
“It was overwhelmingly sad,” MacKay recalled in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press. “(Chiles) had come so far during his tenure and everything just stopped. For me, there was nothing more than being a caregiver and trying to help with the transition. The main thing we could do was stay out of it.”
The MacKays never moved into the mansion, and Florida has not had a Democrat in the governor’s office since.
“He was very, very sensitive to the fact that he was there as the ultimate manager,” the late Democratic political strategist and MacKay adviser Jim Krog once said. “He was clearly aware of the fact that he was governor and that there were some loose ends that needed to be tied up.”
MacKay was out of politics in 1990 when he convinced Chiles, who had retired from the U.S. Senate two years earlier, to run for governor against Republican incumbent Bob Martinez. The Chiles-MacKay team was elected that November and again in 1994.
MacKay, who also served in the Florida Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, ran statewide three times and lost each time, but he never lost his easy-going sense of humor.
“I left politics because of an illness,” he said the day after being defeated by Bush. “Voters got tired of me.”
A dyed-in-the-wool political wonk, MacKay ended his political career as President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Latin America before retiring to his home in central Florida, near Ocala. MacKay supported the former president when many Democrats distanced themselves from Clinton in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He kept busy in the later years of his life doing pro bono work for the Southern Legal Counsel and also playing a mediation role in the juvenile court system.
MacKay nearly won election to the U.S. Senate in 1988, when he lost to Republican Connie Mack III by less than 1 percentage point. It was the closest statewide race in the state’s history until the 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
In a Democratic primary that at one point included former governors Claude Kirk (a former Republican) and Reubin Askew, who dropped out before the election, MacKay recovered from a second-place finish in a six-way primary to win a runoff. against then-Insurance Commissioner Bill Gunter.
As Democrats still largely controlled Florida politics, MacKay was expected to overtake Mack and take Chiles’ seat.
But Mack, who had also been in the U.S. House of Representatives, came up with a catchphrase—”Hey, buddy, you’re a liberal”—that MacKay couldn’t shake at a time when moderate Florida was moving away from the traditional democratic politics.
It took two days after the 1988 election before the official vote count showed Mack had won, by fewer than 34,000 votes out of more than 4 million cast.
Like many of Florida’s leading Democratic politicians of the second half of the 20th century, MacKay began his political career at the height of the state’s integration movement.
MacKay had grown up working in the fields with black workers, but he went to segregated schools and ate in segregated restaurants.
“It was pretty heartbreaking,” he said. “It was always very uncomfortable. My family was involved in farming and I worked many days in the fields with African American crews and some of those adults were part of our family and raised me.”
MacKay’s views on race and the potential for desegregation changed dramatically during his time in the U.S. Air Force from 1955-1958.
“Until I got into the military I didn’t see the potential to leave this behind,” MacKay said. “I went in there and from day one I was totally integrated and there was no problem. It was a very liberating experience.”
Kenneth H. MacKay Jr. was born March 22, 1933 in Ocala.
“In the old South, where I was born, ‘Buddy’ means young man,” MacKay said. “Judges and schoolteachers called me Kenneth, but no one else did. “I’m more of a Buddy than a Kenneth.”
He became a lawyer and citrus grower after leaving the service. He won election to the state House in 1968, the state Senate in 1974, and the United States House of Representatives in 1982 before losing his bid for the United States Senate.
MacKay spent his final years at the home he shared with his wife, Anne, on Lake Weir. According to his son Ken, MacKay remained active in his church and enjoyed caring for his camellias and spending time on the family farm, where they raised citrus trees and livestock.