MIAMI, AUGUST 31 — Gubernatorial hopeful Farid A. Khavari named his running mate today, announcing that author and financial analyst Darcy G. Richardson of Jacksonville qualified for Lieutenant Governor on Wednesday.

“Darcy’s wealth of political experience and economic expertise are of inestimable value to this campaign,” says Khavari, 67 of Miami. “More importantly, they will prove indispensable when we take office next January and begin the job of turning Florida’s economy around.”

Richardson, 54, is a nationally known figure in independent political circles, not least for Others, his multi-volume history of third-party politics in America. He’s managed numerous campaigns, including the 1988 independent presidential campaign of former US Senator Eugene McCarthy. He also ran for office himself twice in the 1980s, on the ticket of Pennsylvania’s Consumer Party.

As a former senior specialist for a major brokerage firm, Richardson has more than a dozen years experience in the financial services industry. His seventh book,  Collapse: How the Managerial Class Plunged the Nation into the Greatest Depression is slated for publication in October 2011.

The centerpiece of the Khavari/Richardson platform is the formation of a state bank to serve the financial needs of Florida’s people and the requirements of the state’s economy.

“The banking industry’s dirtiest secret,” says Richardson, “is that it’s half ‘socialist,’ and in the worst sense of that word. While privately held at the profit end, it externalizes all the attendant risks to the public. If the people of Florida are going to bear the risks of finance, we contend that they should also reap its benefits.”

Khavari and Richardson will face Democrats Alex Sink and running mate Rod Smith, a former State Senator from Gainesville, and Republican Rick Scott and his yet-to-be-named running mate in the November 2nd election.

Link: Khavari for Governor