The Political Whore

Here we go:

• Gov. Charlie is both lucky (the McCain endorsement, since he gave it so late and yet reaped so much from it, despite the fact that it really was Hispanics who gave the win to McCain) and smart (putting all his energy and good name behind the tax amendment).
• The tax amendment won in South Florida; stunning, really, given the Democratic nature of Broward, you would have thought that the union anti-amendment message would have found more fertile ground, but soaring property taxes down there carried the day.
• Rudi’s “strategy” didn’t fail him; Rudi’s personality failed him.
• Florida’s Republicans are lost and adrift as it relates to their presidential candidate; the clear trend was they went with the perceived frontrunner, regardless of the fact that their top choice was far more moderate than the party faithful can stand. Also, white evangelicals gave a plurality of their vote to Mitt Romney (gaining 31 percent of the white evangelicals, tied with evangelical darling Mike Huckabee). These voters secretly can’t stand Romney because of his Mormonism, but again, voted for him out of pragmatism and a hatred for McCain and a sense that Huckabee was out of the picture.
• Florida voters are willing to settle for pennies on the dollar when it comes to tax relief. Now, the vast majority will shut up and be happy; a few aggressive tax-cutters (like David McKalip’s referendum-seeking group and House Speaker Marco Rubio) will try for more cuts, but since Floridians are a cheap date, there won’t be any sentiment to really address the problems (tax inequities, local government budget inflexibility, a bad school funding formula and mechanism, an unfair sales tax system that exempts billions of dollars worth of sales for those who have political clout, etc.)
• Democratic voters weren’t buying the spin that their votes didn’t count and turned out almost as many voters as the Republicans did.
• A McCain nomination would rip the Republican Party apart. (And probably give Rush a heart attack)
• McCain might have momentum, but Mitt has endless personal wealth to throw at the race. So the GOP nomination is not a done deal.

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