Florida: I, Claudius

"This is Claude Kirk, Governor of Florida. Do you read my press? Then you know that I'm a tree-shakin' son of a bitch."

The jowly, jaunty Governor was out shaking trees last week as host of the Republican Governors' Conference in Palm Beach, acting more like a presidential candidate than a freshman state executive. He gave a dozen "in-depth" interviews in one day alone, later lined up 14 taped TV talks with visiting Governors, and hogged the spotlight throughout the conference.

"I'm just sellin' orange juice," Kirk smiles ingenuously. "Sellin' orange juice, sellin' Kirk, sellin' Florida. People are payin' attention."

It has been hard not to. In the eleven months since "GoGo" Kirk, 41, took office, hardly a day has passed without Page One pictures and stories about him in Florida's press. Whether wooing and marrying German-born Beauty Erika Mattfeld, 33, running his 37-foot sloop aground in mirror-calm seas off Miami, or facing down Rap Brown at a Black Power rally in Jacksonville, the fleshily handsome Governor has always been ready with a colorful quote or bizarre gesture to enhance his swinging image. His travels out of state in a private Lear jet have averaged 10,000 miles a month. The Governor claims that his absenteeism fits into "the Kirk plan for instant controversy." He explains: "The garden of controversy must be continually cultivated; otherwise, nobody knows you are alive."

Egostatism. There never has been any doubt that Kirk is among the quick. But is he for real? Says a former business associate: "He is a complete political huckster, a phony and a very dangerous man." To Bill Baggs, editor of the Miami News, "Kirk appears to be the only man in Western civilization who has more answers than there are questions." The Miami Herald refers to him as "Claudius Maximus."

His critics say Kirk has unhesitatingly used the tax-supported Florida Development Commission to promote the political development of Claude Kirk. Indeed, the commission reprints his speeches in handy brochures, distributes them widely, and has run up vast bills for photography and publicity. When newspapers revealed last week that the commission had picked up the $1,628 tab for Kirk's honeymoon flight to Germany this fall with his wife, the irrepressible Governor denied nothing and refunded the money forthwith. "Very good reporting," he said. "Suppose a political enemy instead of the press had found it? That would have been terrible."

Kirk, say his critics, has so confused his own destiny with that of the state that his philosophy should be called "egostatism." Indeed, the Governor cheerfully maintains that what is good for him must perforce be good for Florida. If in the process the former Democrat should find himself the Republicans' vice-presidential choice to bring the South into the fold, he obviously would not mind that either. To that end he grabs every chance to castigate

George Wallace, a fellow graduate of the University of Alabama law shool, whose third-party candidacy in next year's presidential election could eat heavily into the Republican vote in the South.