In his words: The only time I ever even considered running for governor was in 1990. This was when Bill Nelson was doing it from Congress and also George Stuart from the state Senate side.

A friend of mine did a poll — we were able to tack on to somebody’s poll for a few thousand dollars. We tacked on and we decided to run myself just head-to-head against Martinez, just head-to-head the three of us against Martinez, Nelson-Martinez, Stuart-Martinez, Butterworth-Martinez. And so in the meeting someone says, ‘You know, we should put a fourth name in there -- just another name to test the accuracy of this poll and see if there’s anything else out there.’

So I think it was myself who said, you know what? Lawton retired two years ago because he was tired; he was tired of the frustration of Washington. So I said to throw his name in. This is some time in January or so. So it comes out myself and Nelson were in a virtual tie with Martinez, like 33-32. Both of us were the same. George Stuart was a little bit lower than Bill and I. Then the head-to-head with Lawton was like 53 to 30 -- Lawton wins it.

So I thought this was interesting so I ship it over to Charles Whitehead, who was then chair of the party, and I said, ‘Charles this is really interesting. Looks like Bill and I have a chance of winning it.’ Charles thought he would send it to Lawton. He mis-sends it and sends it to Bud Chiles, Lawton’s son. So Bud not knowing where this comes from gives it to the media. The media run with this damn thing. So people go up to Lawton and say, ‘You’re going to run for governor.’

Just one of those things that happens.

So I’m with Lawton at a couple of things. We were at one thing in Crestview - now we’re closer to maybe March - and Neil Cobb who was the Democrat leader in the Crestview area had a bunch of senators there. They had me sitting up there. Lawton was in the room. So Neil says, ‘We may very well have the next governor of Florida in this room.’ He asked Lawton to speak and he says, ‘Neil’s right. We do have the next governor, Bob Butterworth.’

So I get up to give some comments and I say, ‘Neil’s right. Lawton Chiles is the next governor.’ Later on we were at a club. And Lawton was at the end of the bar. So I go over there. I said, ‘Senator, I haven’t known you that well, but I respect you over the years,’ and I said, ‘I think you’re seriously thinking about this.’ And he said, ‘Well, Bob, I got out of politics.’ I said, ‘Would you mind giving me a call?’

We thought we had until about April. It gets close to the end of April, and I get a call from Lawton, and Lawton says, ‘You know, Bob, I was out in the woods listening to my gut. You know, I’m going to run for governor.’

I basically figured, good luck. I don’t mind running again for attorney general. I ran unopposed as attorney general that year.