Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Alex Sink, announced today that she will join what is now an open-seat race for governor. Sink's campaign Web site as recently as yesterday indicated she was planning to seek a second term to her current post, though the switch was not unexpected in the wake of Charlie Crist's decision to run for the U.S. Senate.

In a statement, Sink says she's heard from Floridians that they "need leaders committed to protecting the middle class, strengthening our economy and giving our families a fighting chance. As a businesswoman and working mom, I couldn't agree more."

Sink was elected to the CFO post in 2006, the only Democrat to win a statewide election that year. In her four years Sink says she's seen that "Tallahassee's tired old ways of doing business just aren't enough to answer the urgent new challenges we face. And a state government influenced by narrow special interests cannot put the best interests of everyday Floridians first."

The 60-year-old North Carolina native had previously served as president of Bank of America. Her husband, Bill McBride, lost to incumbent governor Jeb Bush in the 2002 election. An early poll showed her neck-and-neck with Bill McCollum, the state attorney general and a likely candidate for governor in 2010.