For logistical purposes, CL has been consolidating its multiple blog platforms into one, and now it is The Political Whore’s turn to hang out the “We’re Moving” sign. It makes sense: we can’t use a common search engine among more than one blog right now. And we have to cross-post Green Community posts to both sites, to use just one example of content that fits into both blogs.

This will be the last post in this old blog site (Friday, August 21, 2009). Future PoHo posts will appear in our Daily Loaf blog, which also includes Green Community, arts, entertainment, sports, sex & love, film, TV and other pop culture posts.

You can read PoHo news pretty much the same way you read PoHo now, if you just want news & politics and not the rest of the Daily Loaf fare. Just change your bookmark from http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/

to

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/category/politics/

And the RSS feed changes from http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/feed

to

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/category/politics/feed

See you over at the Daily Loaf.

Bill Foster wasted no time in getting the Times recommendation on his website

The drumbeat that the St. Petersburg Times was considering an endorsement (errr, recommendation, as the Times will always let a candidate know its preferred term) of Bill Foster. On its surface, it seems ludicrous. After all, Foster is the same guy who wrote to the school board a few years back making a strong pitch against teaching Darwinian evolution alone in public schools, hoping it would mix in a bit of “intelligent design.”

But the lack of an emerging alternative to Foster left the Times in the inexplicable position of endorsing an anti-gay rights, anti-evolution mayor of St. Petersburg. More to the point, however, the editorial board chooses a candidate based on who will play ball with it. Which candidate will kiss the ring over on 1st Avenue S? That’s what gets you the recommendation. Disagree with the Times on a core concern at the paper — say, firing Police Chief Chuck Harmon, as Scott Wagman as vowed to do — and you are at a disadvantage, to say the least.

It is OK to disagree with the Times on social conservative issues, as long as you play your cards right, promise not to let those views play out in public policy at City Hall and generally keep your wingy-ness in the closet. After all, the Times’ former editorial chief, Phil Gailey, was totally tight with Rick Baker, who was also a social conservative who refused to recognize gay pride parades or appear in them.

From its recommendation today:

As mayor, Foster would offer comforting continuity. He recognizes Baker’s considerable efforts to improve public education and pledges to continue them. He would maintain the conservative approach to building city budgets, offering neither wild new spending plans nor drastic cutbacks but a methodical effort to make government more efficient. He has been measured and responsible on the campaign trail, avoiding the rashness of other candidates who have called for the quick removal of the police chief, the hiring of dozens of new police officers and the spending of city reserves on recurring expenses that would risk St. Petersburg’s fiscal stability.

Yet Foster would chart his own course as mayor. He recognizes there is the public perception, at least, that police do not go after drugs and nonviolent crimes in Midtown as aggressively as they would in more affluent neighborhoods. He calls for the police to pay more attention to drugs, prostitution and burglary. He would shift police resources to where they are most needed, seek a gradual return to community policing, stress crime prevention and give Chief Chuck Harmon an opportunity to embrace his priorities.

As for Foster’s right-wing bent? The Times explains it away:

At times, Foster has spoken in haste and escalated the rhetoric rather than cooling passions. We also have disagreed with his conservative social views, including those in his intemperate letter to the School Board last year promoting creationism. Those views have little to do with being mayor. Foster makes a convincing argument that he recognizes the weight his words and tone would carry if he is elected, and his campaign reflects that maturity. He has articulated a reassuring commitment to civil liberties and constitutional rights, and that would be the yard stick to measure his performance.

Next, Scott Wagman’s from last week:

Finally, Deveron Gibbons in “He Knows This City:”

Join me and other CL writers tonight starting just before 7 pm here as we live blog the Bay News 9/St. Petersburg Times mayoral forum from the Palladium Theater in downtown. i love the title: “Conversation with the Candidates.” I seriously doubt it will be anything that approximates a real conversation.

Watch along on Bay News 9 and throw in your comments, as well. It runs from 7-8:30 pm.

We’ll be providing live fact-checks, analysis and satirical snide comments in the comment section below.

It was a horrible choice in the first place, and the idea that Shelton Quarles was going to be the happy face of a regional tax referendum to pay for rail transit was pretty ludicrous. So today we hear that Quarles, the former Tampa Bay Bucs linebacker, will step stepped down. Bay Buzz reports:

Shelton Quarles, the former Bucs linebacker turned transportation authority chairman, is resigning from the board, vice chairman Frank Hibbard said today.

“I was just told yesterday that Shelton had resigned,” Hibbard said, saying the resignation was effective immediately and he would begin overseeing the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority board.

Read my story “Tackling Transit,” on Quarles when he was first appointed and the controversy about his selection.

And read Quarles PR statement released late today after the news already broke. Good job getting out in front of it, TBARTA:

Shelton Quarles, Chairman of the Tampa Bay Area Transportation Authority (TBARTA), informed Florida Governor Charlie Crist in a letter this week that he will not seek re-appointment to the TBARTA Board.

In the letter he writes, “I regret that I will not be able to serve another term; I finish my current term knowing this region is on its way to implementing and building a world class transportation network.”

“My continuing and growing responsibilities with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are such that they need more than my full-time attention. I have always prided myself in the fact that when I commit to an endeavor, I give it my all. I do not want to be in a position where I am not able to carry out all the required and necessary responsibilities of a TBARTA board member,” Quarles said.

Quarles was named Chairman of the TBARTA Board by Governor Crist in September 2007. In the two years he served as Chair, TBARTA created a transportation vision for the Tampa Bay region by developing and adopting a Regional Transportation Master Plan. Development of the plan included engaging more than 47,500 people in the region during the process.

“Shelton has been a tremendous asset to our organization. His leadership has helped us to come this far in just two short years,” said TBARTA Executive Director Bob Clifford.

Quarles term expires on September 20, 2009. However, he will remain a member of the TBARTA board until such time that the Governor names a replacement.

I was out of the office (and to some degree, out of touch with the important breaking news of the day) for the past two days, so the whole flapdoodle over First Lady Michelle Obama wearing (gasp!) shorts on her family vacation to the Grand Canyon got right by me.

But this morning, I got gobsmacked by the “news” when I broke my prohibition against watching The Today Show and saw not only a produced package report on it but an interview about it with the author of an upcoming book on Mrs. Obama.

So I’m damned if I write about this nothingness (because by doing so I am just perpetuating the media echo chamber on this particular non-news item) but if I sit by and let this phenomenon continue to go unchallenged I look either a) out of touch or b) like I condone such piffle.

So let’s be clear: Blame the Internet, blame the increasingly content-hungry online news media who will write about anything as long as it gets pageviews and resonates and gets Reddit’ed or Digg’ed or whatever’ed. But mostly, blame ourselves, the consumers of this mental junk food, because if we weren’t eating it, they wouldn’t be feeding it to us.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who bore with us through our tech issues today for the live stream. We finally got it done.

The video stream of the taping is after the jump:

Live TV : Ustream

Scott Farrell of The Farrell Files on 10 Connects and CL Editor David Warner join me this morning to tape our weekly HoCast.

Here is our tentative issue lineup, including discussion of Tampa’s electric shuttle car controversy. Have something you want us to discuss or a nominee for Political Whore of the Week? Leave it in comments and we’ll read it during the podcast:

1. The Public Transportation Commission’s decision to pull the plug on free electric shuttles in downtown Tampa

2. Health care and Town Halls: is the nuttiness getting too much? Sarah Palin makes up crap about death panels and the Senate reacts. One crazy brought a gun to the NH Town Hall with Obama. Obama’s popularity continues to slide. Clips as follows:

Dingell calls town hall mobs like KKK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfoGCYFRQlM&feature=ytn%3Amptnews

Obama compares health care concerns to FedEx and UPS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTi-WdOu2s

Audio from the man who brought a gun to the presidential town hall and the discourse he has with Chris Matthews.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1DBIHocbXk

3. Dick Cheney believes that George W Bush “went soft” on him, according to Washington Post. Cheney is prepping a tell-all book
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203306.html

4. Scientology’s ads hit the airwaves here, and the St Pete Times accepts their web banner ads.

5. And is it too easy to do Hillary losing it in the congo?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTi-WdOu2s

Plus Political Whore of the Week nominees
1-time winner Brian Blair officially announces for Florida Legislature
Major Garrett of Fox News, for his naked partisanship during the daily WH newser and a question on why people are getting White House emails http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLQT0X1aSoI
The Moonbats who are selling a $18.49 DVD (with free bumpersticker!) called “A Question of Eligibility” that details the Birther movement and claims

Todd Persico, the owner of Hop Tampa, was bemoaning Wednesday as a “very bad day” after the Hillsborough Public Transportation Commission voted narrowly to (in effect) put free electric vehicle taxi services out of business.

“They determined that we were for-hire vehicles, and without permits, we’re out of business,” Persico said late this afternoon. That puts seven drivers out of work, three $18,000 vehicles in the garage and Persico scrambling to keep his business alive after a year and a half of operations.

It is a classic Catch-22; electric vehicles operators downtown say they were told they didn’t need permits because they didn’t charge for their rides (they make their money on advertising on the vehicles and the drivers get tips), and since the PTC tightly controls taxi permits, they likely wouldn’t be able to get them anyway. But even though they are free and mostly provide rides that the for-pay taxis won’t/don’t give (short hops that aren’t profitable), the PTC put them out of business after cabbies complained.

So much for energy-efficiency and reducing our carbon footprints.

For a restaurateur such as Ferrell Bonnemort of Cafe Dufrain on Harbour Island, the electric vehicles were a godsend; advertising on them brought new customers, and they showed up to give patrons rides home when regular cabs took forever to respond.

“Before these kinds of vehicles came about, our guests would have to wait 45 mintues for a cab,” she said.