The Political Whore

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Despite the censure vote on Governor Charlie Crist last week that evenly divided Palm Beach County Republicans (it failed to pass as the group deadlocked at 65 votes apiece), the head of the Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee says his membership is united.

They’re ALL disappointed in Governor Crist. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

Thursday night’s Town Hall Rally on health care with Congresswoman Kathy Castor in Ybor City has been dissected throughout the country thanks to YouTube.

The atmosphere both inside and outside of the Children’s Board was as intense and, at times, incendiary as the days after the presidential election in Florida in 2000.  (I’ll never forget Day 3 of the 36-day recount in West Palm Beach, when I saw Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler sprint for safety into a trailer from incensed Republicans after finishing a live interview with then CNN anchor Greta Van Susteren).

Although the failure of both houses of Congress to vote on health care legislation before the August break was initially viewed as a loss of momentum for President Barack Obama, the fact is that the American public does need to sit and discuss what is in this once-in-a-generation legislation.

Unfortunately though, through the first week of the Congressional recess, the Town Hall format ain’t the place where that’s happening (and probably won’t , as more members of Congress can use footage of Tampa, St. Louis and Detroit to blow off further encounters).

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

With the recording industry in freefall, the manager of one of the most respected bands in rock announced last month a new sort of record label, perhaps more akin to a venture capital company.

Brian Message represents Radiohead. But now with Polyphonic, a new company he’s helping to create, new artists will be signed and given funding but then will record their own music and choose outside contractors to handle their publicity, merchandising and touring.

According to the NY Times,

Instead of receiving an advance and then possibly reaping royalties later if they have a hit, musicians will share in all the profits from their music and touring. In another departure from tradition in the music business, they will also maintain ownership of their own copyrights and master recordings — meaning they and their heirs can keep earning money from their music.

Meanwhile, Nielsen reports that sales of physical albums fell off , while individual digital tracks rose  27 percent. That follows news from earlier this year that indicates that teenagers are not only buying fewer CD’s (nothing too radical there), but also fewer digital downloads of music, prompting a market researcher to remark, “ These declines could be happening due to a lack of excitement among teens about the music available, but it could also reflect a larger shift in the ways teens interact with music, given that so much music is now available whenever and wherever they want it.”

Intrigued, I asked one of the veterans of the music industry, Danny Goldberg, what he makes of what’s happening in the industry he’s worked in for his entire adult life.  He said these developments are part and parcel of the radically different environment in the music industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Last week had to the roughest in the first half year of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would not be able to vote on a health care bill before the August recess; Obama admitted his comments regarding the controversy over the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates had in a way exacerbated the conflict; and one major poll now shows him below 50 percent in approval ratings.

To add to all of that,  there was this: The bizarre world that is the deniers of his citizenship suddenly broke out of the conservative blogosphere and into mainstream conversation.

The “Birthers.” Again.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo correspondent
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Legendary television anchorman Walter Cronkite’s death on Friday at the age of 92 has prompted massive encomiums on his career and how no one figure could ever dominate mass communications like “Uncle Walter” did in the ’60s and ’70s. It also allows us to ponder the state of national television news.

In the immediate days (and weeks) after Michael Jackson’s death last month, America’s broadcast and cable news networks went — predictably — hog wild over the pop superstar’s death. They saw their ratings rise, while also receiving criticism from a lot of quarters that they were overdoing it.

But were you really surprised?

Pardon the expression, but haven’t we seen this movie, err, blanket news coverage before?

Can you say Anna Nicole Smith?  Ronald Reagan? Princess Diana anybody? Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Los Angeles Dodgers star Manny Ramirez’s return to Major League Baseball two weekends ago after a 50 game suspension for using a performing enhancing drug was met with predictable hand wringing by much of the sporting press.

Ramirez’ bust in May (for using a female fertility drug) was wedged between similar outings of Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa, who both reportedly failed drug tests back in 2003. Despite the fierce criticism in some quarters, A-Rod and Manny have been received pretty much like the conquering heroes they always have been by their home town fans since the embarrassing disclosures.  And that annoys many ink stained scribes. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Last Saturday in Brandon’s Clayton Park, approximately 200 citizens gathered for a TEA Party (Taxed Enough Already) organized by conservative activist Terry Kemple, and featuring a rally-the-troops speech by State Senator Ronda Storms (right).

It was one of what was supposed to be over 1,000 such expressions of outrage at government spending under the Obama administration around the country on Independence Day, and followed a similar outburst of conservative sentiment at the first “Teabag” parties held on Tax Day, April 15th.

That day was also dedicated to federal largesse, though you may recall it more as a media battle between the seeming outright advocacy of the Fox News network, and the derision of it by more liberal commentators, including way too many allusions to what the phrase ‘teabagging’ meant. (This Keith Olbermann bit was just part of that onslaught.)

The growing federal deficit was on the minds of most of the citizenry. Despite the fact that a large part of the current deficit can be laid at the feet of former President George W. Bush (as my previous column, referring NY Times columnist David Leonhardt, can attest to), those in attendance on Saturday were of no mind to hear such specific facts. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor and anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

Health care reform in Washington is in peril.

In the words of Maryland Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski late last week, “Obviously this is not going to go as fast as we thought.”

The promise of reforming health care has been a singular focus of President Barack Obama — well, along with dealing with the banking crises, the foreclosure crises, and getting the economy recharged.

But now that crunch time is approaching, the various voices that comprise the debate in Washington are speaking up, and some groups previously considered as potential allies, (such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) are now speaking critically of the legislation being discussed right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor and anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

For weeks, state and national political reporters have been anticipating that the Charlie Crist/Marco Rubio race for the Republican nomination for Senate in Florida next year will be a barn-burning battle between competing philosophies in the party.

That’s despite a poll released last week that shows the governor with an overwhelming lead in the match-up.

And now Rubio doesn’t necessarily have a hold on all those disaffected Republicans who think the Governor is too moderate for their tastes.

Enter Sarasota resident Bob Smith.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

The shocking assassination of late-term abortion doctor George Tiller on May 31 has brought back the volatile issue of abortion on to the national landscape.

Of course, it’s never gone away. But the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor by President Obama to the Supreme Court — and her relatively scant record on abortion issues — has elicited analysis that, perhaps unlike every previous Supreme Court nomination over the past few decades, her nomination won’t be heavily focused by her thoughts on Roe v. Wade.

Pro-choice advocates were stunned when Gallup reported last month that for the first time since it began asking the question, a majority of Americans now call themselves pro-life vs. pro-choice (although a review of other similar polls taken over the past year continue to reflect a majority pro-choice America.)

If that wasn’t at least a soft blow to those reproductive rights advocates, Tiller’s death by the hands of 51-year-old Scott P. Roeder absolutely was.

And for a portion of the public, upon learning of Tiller’s death, thoughts immediately turned to Bill O’Reilly, who focused relentlessly on the controversial doctor’s status as one of just a handful of M.D.’s in the country who continued to perform late term abortions.

Some liberal commentators and bloggers immediately blamed the cable news analyst for inciting Roeder to commit murder.  O’Reilly, predictably, pushed back, and used the opening moments of his show last week to argue that his foils, NBC News and company, were just as responsible for the murder of U.S. soldier William Long in Arkansas by a Muslim convert.

For many in the abortion rights movement, Tiller’s death brought back the dark days of the 1990’s, when doctors David Gunn, Bernard Slepian and John Britton were killed for their work as abortion providers.

Sarasota resident Sherry Svekis received a late-term abortion from Tiller in 1985. Not being a regular Fox News viewer, she was unaware of the very public campaign O’Reilly had wrought against Tiller over the years until his death.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

Last week, Lakeland State Senator Paula Dockery said she was seriously contemplating
a run for the Republican nomination for governor in 2010.

Apparently, she didn’t get the edict that party Chairman Jim Greer issued recently that all good Republicans should get behind Attorney General Bill McCollum’s candidacy.

But as far as Republican consultant (and soon to be PoHo contributor) Chris Ingram  is concerned, Dockery’s possible entrance into the race is a good thing.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

D.C. reporters were disappointed last Friday when Nancy Pelosi refused to answer questions regarding her current contretemps on the CIA and waterboarding.

It came right days after her disastrous news conference where she alleged that the CIA misled her in a Sept. 4, 2002, secret briefing about torture.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

When Marco Rubio declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate earlier this month, he said his campaign wasn’t “against anyone or anything.” On the Spanish language Univision Network, however, his tone was as different as the idiom, saying he was interested in combating “the kind of American Socialism that they want to establish in the U.S.”

Last Friday night in Tampa, I asked the former House speaker, who will compete head to head against Gov. Charlie Crist for the nomination to succeed Mel Martinez in the Senate next year, what exactly did he mean by that?

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

Democratic Party political strategist James Carville has published a new book out with the audacious title of “40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation.”

The first thought from any sensible person should be that the hyperbole is a little rich. If nothing else, political junkies don’t have to have a long memory to remember how Karl Rove fell off his petard with his (now ludicrous) proclamation about ushering in a” durable Republican majority” earlier this decade. That didn’t exactly work out that way.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio

This past Saturday in Tampa, the man hailed as the savior of the Iraq war, Gen. David Petraeus, as part of being honored by Toastmasters International, was to have given a speech, However, Washington business took precedent, and speaking in the Central Command leader’s stead was Rear Admiral Mike Franken, U.S. Navy Deputy Director of Strategy Plans & Policy for Central Command.

Appearing at the Marriott Westshore Hotel, Franken said he was up for taking questions from the hundred conventioneers in attendance at the end of his slide filled presentation. Unfortunately, Toastmasters provided limited time for the military official to speak (the world champion of public speaking from 2005 was giving a seminar in the same room), and thus he was able only to respond to a couple of audience queries before being summoned from the dais.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

This is the story of a little-known South Florida mayor, a progressive anti-automatic weapons kinda politician with little name recognition and labeled with the tag “the gay candidate” in his quest to be the next U.S. senator from Florida. His name is Kevin Burns. More about him after we set the rest of the field.

Charlie Christ’s decision to wait until the end of the legislative session before declaring his political future has frozen most Republicans with fanciful ambitions of higher office through the first part of 2009.

But with three weeks to go before the popular chief executive announces whether he’ll run for re-election or opt to set his sights on Mel Martinez’s seat in Washington, some members of the GOP last week realized they can’t wait any longer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe because it happens so infrequently, but it seems that every time a Democrat gets elected President, Americans of a certain persuasion get psyched that maybe marijuana use could become legalized.

Jimmy Carter was considered to be a reformer regarding the herb, but he quickly disabused Americans of that notion when he endorsed the Mexican government’s use of the herbicide paraquat on marijuana fields in Mexico in 1977.

Bill Clinton infamously smoked but didn’t inhale in his halcyon days, and of course, Barack Obama infamously admitted in his first memoir Dreams of My Father that in his confusing days in high school, “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.”

But when asked about legalizing pot at his town hall Internet meeting last month, the president was quick to dismiss such thoughts, saying he had no intention of doing so.

But that’s hardly stopped the national conversation on the matter. Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

Last Friday afternoon’s soaring (and dizzying) deficit numbers produced by the Congressional Budget Office were the last thing the Obama administration needed.  Between that and what can only be labeled bailout fatigue that has exploded after the AIG debacle, there is a fear that one of the President’s most ambitious and far reaching goals of his presidency – reforming health care – could be on life support before the specifics of the plan are already announced.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor
Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

As the winter of 2009 comes to a close, Floridians (and Americans) are being inundated with various news reports about the effects of the worst economic downturn in 26 (if not 75) years.

New stories emerge every day about how the economy is affecting people in a myriad number of ways, such as putting off non-urgent surgical procedures, or couples who have divorced staying together, or actually living in Shantytowns. More than 355,000 Floridians have lost their jobs in the last year, and more than half-million are collecting unemployment. And now one local state legislator wants those who apply for such benefits to not only swallow their pride, but also their dignity by submitting to random drug tests.

Yet, there are sectors of the economy that are doing okay, if not thriving.

One is professional sports.

Last Friday afternoon at Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater, at a few minutes before 3 p.m., with the mercury hitting 79 degrees on a picture perfect Chamber of Commerce day, the Philadelphia Phillies slugger Ryan Howard clobbered a two-run homer, and for the Philly fanatics, and everybody else with a pulse, the economic downturn was somebody else’s bad dream.

The defending World Series champions have been immune from the economic malaise. Attendance is up nearly 30 percent in Clearwater, and even higher for the American League champions in their first venture in Port Charlotte.

MLB.Com reports that the Tampa Bay Rays attendance in spring training is up a whopping 40 percent.

But elsewhere, there have been various reports about other teams struggling this March, particular teams who train in the Cactus League in Arizona.

USA Today reports that teams like the perennially popular Chicago Cubs are off 3,000 fans a game.

And in South Florida, the Palm Beach Post reports that the St. Louis Cardinals attendance is down 20 percent, and in Port St. Lucie, the February/March home of the New York Mets, occupancy is down 15 percent at the Hilton Garden Inn.

So the recession IS affecting pro baseball, right?

Uh, not exactly.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor

Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio.

As the Dow Jones Industrials and the S&P 500 continued their dismal descent last week, conservative commentators appeared proud that they alone have deciphered the reason why – it’s President Obama’s economic proposals, of course.

From the Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial on Friday:

What’s worrying about the plunge in equities since January 2, and especially in the last week since Mr. Obama released his radical budget, is that it has come amid the unveiling of the President’s policy agenda. Equity prices have reacted to those proposals by signaling that they expect a much deeper and longer recession.

And on the next page, former Bush 41 Economic Advisor Michael Boskin wrote under the doomsday headline “Obama’s Radicalism is Killing the Dow:”

It’s hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president’s policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.

And so on. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly led off virtually every one of his “Talking Points” segments by also blaming the president’s “Socialist spending sprees” as further evidence that Wall Street is not impressed.

But is this really correct? One political theorist laughed when I asked him this last week.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor

Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio. This is his first post as a PoHo contributor.

Perhaps because of the mind blowing dollars attached to his policy prescriptions to change the country, President Obama’s announcement last Friday that he will withdraw all combat forces from Iraq by next summer and all remaining U.S. troops by the end of 2011 hardly registered as a momentous event on the national scene.. That is, if you go by the measure of how the D.C. press corps addresses news emanating from the Obama administration, which sometimes seems to be viewed through the prism of “How pissed are Congressional Republicans about it?”

Read the rest of this entry »

By Mitch Perry
PoHo contributor

Mitch Perry is the anchor of the WMNF Evening News on 88.5 FM community radio. This is his first post as a PoHo contributor.

Under the category of “Whose GOP is it anyway?”, NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday served up what some political junkies hoped might be a potential death match rumble on the Beltway’s Sunday morning television’s crown jewel of punditry over the past 15 years.

But MTP has had very few Must See TV episodes since Tim Russert’s tragic death of a heart attack last summer, and this rhetorical rumble failed to materialize.

That’s because in the battle of dueling GOP Governors on the stimulus bill, NBC’s David Gregory chose to bring his two guests on in separate segments to reflect the dissent within the Grand Old Party.

(Video from the MTP appearances after the jump)

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