"For democracy to be representative, the public space is going to have its share of people who are nuts."

Florida’s penchant for the weird and strange — often manifested in new ways of criminal behavior (think chasing people through a store with a live alligator) — is so prevalent it’s created a cottage industry of chroniclers and followers.

But like a contagion that has escaped a hermetically-sealed lab, the swamp fever of Florida weirdness appears to be spreading now to the politicians who represent the state’s nearly 21 million residents.

Read more at the Gainesville Sun.