Clinton Tyree

Clinton Tyree, a.k.a. Skink, is a fictional character who has appeared in several novels by Carl Hiaasen, beginning with Double Whammy in 1987. He is an opponent of sprawl and development, and partakes of roadkill cuisine.

Tyree was Governor of Florida in the 1970s. He was everything desirable in a candidate: a native of Florida, a college football star, and a decorated Vietnam veteran. He was dazzlingly handsome, charismatic, and articulate. He was also a former English professor at the University of Florida, though politically most people saw this as a handicap rather than an asset.

To the surprise of the Florida establishment, he was also one of the few honest men to hold the office, if not the only one. After he turned down a bribe from real estate developers, the developers assumed he was holding out for more money, and came back offering a larger bribe, along with a foolproof scheme for concealing the money. To their astonishment, the governor not only refused again, but had them arrested in an F.B.I. sting.

Tyree was also vehemently opposed to runaway growth in Florida, and gained national recognition for his passionate speeches and legislative proposals to discourage tourism, curtail land development, and protect the environment. (For example, one of his proposed laws would have required any boat driver who killed a manatee to immediately forfeit his boat, pay a $10,000 fine or go to jail for forty-five days, and bury the dead animal himself at a public ceremony).

Appalled, a group of Florida special interests pooled their resources to neutralize the governor politically, by bribing majorities in the state cabinet and the legislature to ignore or reject all of his initiatives.

Years later, the executive assistant to the current governor reviews Tyree’s history, and marvels at the futility of his struggle:

As popular as Clinton Tyree had been with the common folk of Florida, he stood no chance – none whatsoever – of disabling the machinery of greed and converting the legislature into a body of foresight and honest ethics. It was boggling to think a sane person would even try.

On the same day that the crooked developers who had tried to bribe Tyree were convicted, but punished with nothing more than probation, the Florida Cabinet voted unanimously (except for Tyree) to sell the original wildlife preserve that they’d been after to another developer. On that day, Tyree quit and disappeared from the Governor's mansion. At first, Tyree was believed kidnapped, until a notarized letter of resignation was sent to the Capitol and verified by the FBI.

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