The Political Whore

By State Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg
PoHo contributor
Kriseman is guest blogging throughout the Florida Legislature’s 60-day session.

It’s halftime in the Florida Legislature. I don’t know the exact score, but I know the people of Florida are trailing. The House, in particular has shown little sense of urgency, unless we’re tackling mandatory pre-abortion ultrasounds or some other issue of importance to certain political consultants and pollsters. We’ve spent just a few hours on the floor during the first month of session, and committee meetings are quietly winding down without passage of any significant packages.

In fairness, the budget does remain the talk of the town, and serious discussions between the two chambers are reportedly beginning. Regardless, Floridians shouldn’t expect any bold ideas from their state government. It’s business as usual up here, and unless our coaches make some halftime adjustments, hardworking Floridians will endure another losing session.

This is a year for developers and their high-paid legal lackeys to make end-runs on state and local environmental regulations, all in the name of re-starting our economy by letting development and growth run rampant — which is pretty much what tanked Florida’s economy in the first place.

It’s a false premise and a stupid idea. Now comes the most naked attack on the already pro-development balance in Florida’s runaway destruction of our natural beauty, a piece of hilariously titled legislation called “House Bill 1349 – Environmental Protection.” As Craig Pittman and Matt Waite of the St. Petersburg Times report today:

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By Jim Johnson
PoHo Contributor
Jim Johnson is the creator of The State of Sunshine blog.

Today is the 18th day of the 2009 Legislative session.

Just one committee is meeting on Friday.

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U.S. Sugar’s prime competitor, the Fanjul-owned Florida Crystals, has commissioned an engineering study that estimates it will cost the state more than $9 billion to fully use all 180,000 acres it is buying from the sugar-growing giant.

That estimate is well in excess of any previous guess.

The Palm Beach Post reports that pro-US Sugar deal forces say the Florida Crystals report has no validity:

The cost estimates for design and construction raise questions about whether the Everglades, which scientists say is in near-irreversible decline, would benefit quickly enough from Crist’s initiative, critics say.

But one leading champion of the land purchase dismissed the study as propaganda by the opposition, which includes rival sugar grower Florida Crystals Corp.

“Their goal is to undermine this land acquisition,” said Kirk Fordham, CEO of the Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit group that pushed Crist to put together the deal. “The report has no credibility.”

Still, opponents say the figures suggest that the ecological benefits from the mammoth land deal remain too distant to justify putting existing restoration plans on hold to pay for U.S. Sugar’s property.

From Craig Pittman at the Times:

As of this week, Tampa Bay Water has virtually drained its 15 billion-gallon reservoir. From now until the summer rainy season, it must rely on its two remaining sources of water: its sometimes troubled desalination plant and the dwindling supply in the underground aquifer.

“It’s going to be a long couple of months waiting for the rainy season,” Tampa Bay Water spokeswoman Michelle Robinson said Friday.

The regional utility expects to again ask the Southwest Florida Water Management District to impose the toughest watering restrictions in history on Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough county residents. Swiftmud turned down that request last month – but that was before the reservoir ran out.

Here’s a counterpoint to Kelly Cornelius’ most recent post on SunRail, an op-ed from the president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Mark Wilson:

Commuter rail helps create jobs

America is in a recession, and Floridians have not been spared. Florida’s unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, higher than the national rate of 7.2 percent. It seems as if every day, newspapers throughout the state report layoffs by Florida companies. Last year, Florida lost 255,000 jobs.

Times are tough, and the full attention of our elected leaders should be given to economic recovery, transition and job growth. While Florida is faced with the same economic challenges as the rest of the nation, we are fortunate to have a governor who understands the need to invest in long-term transportation solutions even in these tough times.

Read the rest of this entry »

While the governors in state such as Mississippi worry about accepting stimulus money because, for one thing, they would have to expand their unemployment benefits, Florida is getting the federal money and boosting benefits – and making no bones about it.

According to College News:

Governor Charlie Crist (R) signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor which will allow $345 million in federal money to go directly to the state through the end of the calendar year. The effects of the agreement came to fruition on Sunday.

The AP reported that benefits in the state are based on a worker’s prior earnings. In 2008, the Florida unemployment benefits ranged from $32 to $275 per week. Under the new agreement, Florida’s weekly unemployment benefits will increase by $25.

According to the Tampa Bay Business Journal, approximately $12.2 billion of the $787 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is set to be delivered to Florida over the next three years. Additionally, some of the funding in the stimulus is already included in Governor Crist’s proposed $66.5-billion state budget for the next fiscal year. The budget is expected to either create or retain 314,590 jobs in the state, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported.

OK, so it’s only $25 a week individually. Still, $345 million put back into Florida’s crippled economy is a good thing.

Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp was in Tampa on Wednesday to talk to about 350 business leaders at the Florida TARP Forum when I got a chance to grab him after his cheerleading speech (”This too shall pass” he said of the current recession). I asked him whether the Crist Administration would support the loony idea winging through the Legislature to relax development regulations to spur more new home construction.

Even Kottkamp had to admit that Florida housing is already remarkably overbuilt. “We have an inventory of about 300,000 homes right now,” the high-flying lieutenant governor said backstage. In his cheeriest voice, he said what we need is to market aggressively that inventory to people who want to move or buy a second or vacation home. No better deals than in Florida right now, Kottkamp chirped.

But does the administration buy the theory that we need to stimulate more housing construction by making it easier to overdraw water supplies, kill endangered species and destroy wetlands?

“We’d have to see the [actual legislation] to really comment,” he said.

As Barack Obama signs the $787 billion economic stimulus plan that could likely define this term in office (and determine whether he gets a second), the White House marketing department and its proxies are busy selling it to the Amnerican public.

The bottom line, according to the White House and its economic advisors, is that the legislation’s spending provisions will create or save 206,000 jobs in Florida, second only to California (396,000) and Texas (269,000).

These are only estimates, the White House explains:

The estimates are derived from an analysis of the overall employment impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act conducted by Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President, and detailed estimates of the working age population, employment, and industrial composition of each state.

The full state-by-state list can be downloaded here.

Former state lawmaker Gus Barreiro is another job victim of computer porn on a workplace laptop.

Barreiro was mysteriously let go in January, and now an internal investigation in his case shows why: 300-400 adult porn photos found on his Department of Juvenile Justice computer. From the St. Pete Times:

The 13-page report said an examination of the hard drive of Barreiro’s state-issued laptop contained “300 to 400″ images of adult pornography.

Known as a crusader for children, Barreiro was instrumental in the agency’s decision to acknowledge its sordid past of condoning savage beatings of boys at a building known at the White House at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna in the 1950s and 1960s.

Barreiro cited that work as part of the reason he was fired: “Ever since I introduced those men out to the White House, my life changed with that department,” he said. “I was being told I was being set up. No one likes me. I should have heard the warnings. When they asked for my computer, that’s when I felt something was up.”

MSNBC reports:

The Obama administration on Tuesday overturned another Bush-era energy policy, announcing it was setting aside a draft plan to allow drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

“To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside” the plan “and create our own timeline,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced in a statement.

Alleging that the Bush administration “had torpedoed” offshore renewable energy, Salazar said he was extending the public comment period by 6 months and ordering his experts to compile a report on the Outer Continental Shelf’s energy potential – not just oil and natural gas, but also renewables like wind and wave energy.

My favorite magazine, The New Yorker, has taken a blowtorch to Florida, rightly branding it “The Ponzi State” in an article just hitting subscribers’ mailboxes. The article details how fraud and greed created the housing bubble in Florida, and its subsequent collapse and recession. Creative Loafing owner Ben Eason is even quoted. The story is available online only to subscribers, but here is what Ben’s mentions look like:

and

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The state hopes to get $3.5 billion in stimulus money earmarked for education, a big help in filling Florida’s budget hole.

But the Orlando Sentinel says not so fast there.

The daily reports that a provision in the economic recovery package calls for the stimulus money to go only to those states that can support “schools for the next two years at the levels they had in the 2005-06 school year.

“But the state is below that threshold,” the paper reports. “In fact, school funding coming directly from the state is now lower than it was in the 2004-05 school year. With Florida’s budget shortfall for next year ballooning toward $4 billion, it’s not clear it could meet that requirement.”

Read the story here.

In a classic corporate shit-fit, State Farm today didn’t announce it would be cutting back on writing homeowner policies in Florida in the wake of not getting a 47 percent rate increase that it had requested so nicely; it announced it was leaving the state’s property insurance market altogether:

State Farm spokesman Chris Neal said Tuesday that some 1.2 million customers with residential and other related property insurance policies would be affected, but said that none need to worry immediately.

“It’s going to be a long process,” Neal said. “No one has to do anything today.”

The Illinois-based insurer can’t do anything either before completing a regulatory review in 90 days, and is then prohibited by law from ending any policy before giving a six-month notice.

Four State Farm executives, including chief executive officer Ed Rust and State Farm Florida President Jim Thompson, met with Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty and other staff at the Office of Insurance Regulation for an hour Tuesday to inform them of their decision.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, SF. I was a loyal customer of the brand until last year, when it dropped my policy because I live within two miles of the coast (Old Tampa Bay, in my case).

The insurer said it was losing millions of dollars a day without being able to raise rates to cover its risks.

Researchers polled it with top Democrat Alex Sink in the race, even though she has announced she will not run, and still it wasn’t great news for Democrats. The Quinnipiac University poll released this week shows the difficulty Obama’s party will have in winning Mel Martinez’s Florida seat in 2010, as I outlined in my column this week.

Atty General Bill McCollum (courtesy myfloridalegal.com)

It was a toss-up with Sink in the race, at least against GOP Attorney General and anti-casino noodge Bill McCollum. McCollum led 36 percent-35 percent. Not exactly a great starting point for your strongest candidate — who is not even running.

The breakdown of the rest of the race:

Had Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink decided to run for the U.S. Senate, she would have had a small early lead in the Democratic field, and run almost even with the best-known GOP potential candidate, Attorney General Bill McCollum, with 35 percent for Sink and 36 percent for McCollum, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

Although McCollum holds a wide lead in name recognition among the GOP candidates, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of the former senator with the same name, runs closely to him in a trial heat of GOP contenders and also is viewed very positively by the party-rank-in-file.

“No one has surfaced as a likely Democratic opponent for Gov. Charlie Crist and that’s not surprising given how well he is thought of by Floridians,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It’s impressive at this time of national Obamamania that Gov. Crist’s favorability rating is slightly higher than that of the new President. Of course, it’s still more than 21 months until the 2010 election, but Charlie Crist looks like a very strong candidate for re-election.”

Here is how they stand today (a fairly meaningless exercise, I admit, except for ammo in early fundraising) on the Democratic side:

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Ever wonder what the department store lingerie scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation would play like in German? Yea.

• Cheney admits OK’ing waterboarding.
• Cockamamie scheme to lease Alligator Alley to private interests is put on hold.
• How to cut $2.3 billion from the state budget without laying anyone off.
• Stop driving right up my ass, or the FHP will target you over Christmas.
• Friendship Trail proponents aren’t giving up.
• Fewer Christmas shoppers = less crime at the malls.
• Obama’s “success tax.”
• The battle for green jobs in Obama’s economic stimulus package.
• Check out Congress’s 2008 voting scores.
• Oh, and Obama and Rahmbo did nothing wrong with Blago. At least that’s what they say.

As is the practice of most media, the final weeks of the year are the time to reflect on the news that was and try to make some sense out of it. Alex Pickett and I are working on our Top 10 list together but would love some feedback from you.

Here (in, as they say, no particular order) is our full list of important stories from Tampa Bay and Florida this year, from which we hope to choose 10. Did we miss anything? And which ones are the most important for 2008.

• Mayor Pam Iorio pushes for a 2010 referendum on light rail in Tampa
• Kevin Beckner beats Brian Blair
• A relative tries to blackmail Don Wallace
• Florida Democratic delegate brouhaha
• The ginormous Confederate battle flag over Tampa
• Mel Martinez announces Senate retirement
• Charlie Crist woo’ed as vice president
• The Without Walls church scandal/divorce for the pastors White
• Obama carries Florida
• Democrats make few other gains in 2008 elections
• Read the rest of this entry »

This morning’s top political and media stories in Tampa Bay, Florida and beyond:

• The Tampa Tribune’s bizarre front-page: We’re not dead! “By organizing the paper as we have, we’ve been able to preserve more space for local content. The Times, which clings to traditional sections as being more important to readers than local news, is stuck with a format that requires reducing local content.”
• Obama’s NASA transition team looks at how to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and what comes next.
• The right-wingers in Tallahassee see a silver lining.
• GOP in-fighting in Fort Myers.
• One paper says the US Sugar deal “not assured;” another says it could be finalized today.
• No change at the top for Florida political parties.
• The speaker of the Florida House of Representatives has no credibility left.

Breaking news:

MIAMI – A Miami Dade Circuit judge ruled today that a gay man and his partner should be able to adopt the two foster children they have raised for four years.

Circuit Judge Cindy S. Lederman “these children are thriving. These words we don’t often hear within these walls. That’s uncontroverted,” said Circuit Judge Cindy S. Lederman.

“They’re a good family. They’re a family in every way except in the eyes of the law. These children have a right to permanancy,” the judge said. “The only real permanancy is adoption in the home where they are thriving.

“There is no rational basis to preclude homosexuals from adopting,” Lederman continued.

Activists challenging Florida’s ban on gay adoptions hope for a positive ruling today from a judge in Miami:

A decision was due Tuesday on the request by 47-year-old Martin Gill to adopt two young boys he has been raising as foster children. The state of Florida has fought in court against Gill’s petition to adopt the boys.

Florida has one of the strictest bans on gay adoptions in the country. A judge in Key West ruled in September that the ban was unconstitutional, but that ruling has had limited legal impact.

The American Civil Liberties Union has sided with Gill in the case. The ACLU says there is a shortage of parents for adoptions in Florida, where at a given time there are about 1,000 children waiting to be adopted.

More on the case here.

That would the only explanation for today’s Qunnipiac Poll about the economy in our state:

Florida voters are surprisingly upbeat about their personal financial condition, as 56 percent say family finances are “excellent” or “good,” and 43 percent say they are “not so good” or “poor,” according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. But only 31 percent expect things to get better in the next year, while 21 percent say they will get worse and 44 percent say they will stay the same.

Lying about your personal financial condition makes sense. After all, who wants to admit, even to a pollster in anonymity, that their household budget is shot to hell, that they have more personal debt than some small Latin American nations, and that the Holiday Season is going to be slim pickins.

credit: thetruthabout/flickr.com

The poll even hints at this disconnect between our view of how we are doing and the way we tell others about it:

Voters say 59 – 20 percent that they are worse off then they were a year ago, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

“The housing meltdown hit Florida worse than most of the rest of the country and unemployment has risen there, yet voters aren’t nearly as pessimistic about their situation or their prospects as in some other states,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

(So we’re either more optimistic than the nation at large or too stupid to know we’re in real trouble in the Sunshine State. I vote for the latter.)

“Only 53 percent say they are somewhat or very dissatisfied with the way things are going in Florida today, while 47 percent are very or somewhat satisfied. That’s pretty optimistic given the economy, stock market crash and predictions that the recession could be deep and long,” said Brown. “There are higher levels of pessimism in other parts of the country.”

“A November 13 Quinnipiac University national poll showed a record high 82 percent level of dissatisfaction.”

And anyone wondering just how much red remains in this purple state of ours need look no further than the poll’s top answer for our economic woes:

Floridians say 58 – 30 percent that more cuts in local property taxes are needed, in part because local officials have failed reduce assessments to reflect the decline in property values. They think 73 – 22 percent the voting public, not the Legislature, should make the tax cuts. When it comes to the state budget, they want spending cut rather than taxes raised….

That’s right, giving homeowners a few measly hundred bucks back on their annual property tax bill makes a helluva lot more sense than improving our economy, growing better-paying jobs and upping our education system so we are competitive in the global market.

You’ve got to hand it to John McCain: The Senator’s appearance on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live was by far the funniest appearance by any candidate this election season. (Note to Hulu: Post “Giraffes” now!)

• Real Clear Politics has it Obama up 4 in Florida; Obama up 6 nationally.
• Robo-PPP poll has Obama up 2.
• Some of our knuckle-dragging Tampa Bay neighbors express their racist political beliefs.
• Carl Hiassen: “Deliver us from scandal, Lord.”
• Sure, we got Buffett, but Cleveland got The Boss.
• It all comes down to this …
• Predictions anyone? Put yours in the comments.
• November surprise: Obama’s aunt gets deported. And who leaked this info anyway?
• Is Gov. Charlie about to take a step to the left?
• The Bucs pull one out in overtime, defeating the lowly Chiefs 30-27.
• Netflix finally goes live on the Mac.
• R.I.P.: Studs Terkel.

The Miami Herald has an interesting post about the relationship between the McCain campaign, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and the state Republican Party. It had grown quite testy for several months, but now Crist is planning on filming a commercial for McCain.

As to the difficult relationship, the Herald reports:

McCain campaign director Rick Davis had Florida in his “safe column.” That changed last month, just as the relationship between McCain Florida director Arlene DiBenigno and RPOF chair Jim Greer appeared to get frosty. Some Republicans say the third floor of the party’s George Bush building is divided – state Republicans on one side and McCain folks on the other. And there’s not much chatting going on between the two. Lots of closed-door meetings. Little trust. Sometimes state and county Republicans find out about McCain events by reading it in the papers or on the blogs.

Today’s LA Times mentions that Greer/Crist shot down a plan to have the party pay for a flier linking Barack Obama to terrorist Bill Ayers. Some Republicans say it’s true. Others aren’t sure. Others remember a flier that featured Middle East terrorists.

The New Republic has also weighed in with a piece about how McCain let Florida slip away:

If John McCain were on a clear path to victory, there would be no campaign here at all. Yet there was McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin, battling on Sunday across the state’s crucial central corridor in Tampa and Kissimmee. Come Wednesday, Bill Clinton will campaign with Barack Obama–the former president’s first joint appearance with the Democratic nominee–at an evening rally here.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of South Florida spoke for many of her fellow Democrats: “People are so excited that we have a presidential campaign that is still here.” Translation: She and others in her party are amazed that Obama has a real chance to carry this state.

The fact that McCain is on the defensive here and in such a broad swath of Republican territory is emblematic of the 2008 endgame. It is a sign of the extent to which Obama has outorganized and outstrategized McCain, and an indication of how almost all the issues have moved against the GOP.

Today’s top political and media headlines, with updates throughout the day:

• Obama barnstorms the Sunshine State.
• Hey, I’m not THAT Tim Mahoney.
• Early voting starts today.
• Will FLA screw up voting? (Sound familiar?)
• Lawyers rejoice! Tampa Bay Water could approve effed-up reservoir lawsuit today.
• Conservative blog: the polls could be wrong.
• Obama raises stunning $150 million in September.
• RNC demonstration charges against Kelly Benjamin dropped.

Greatest toy ever: The Dude (Unemployed) 8-Inch Action Figure.

• McCain adviser Charlie Black sees more dead Americans as a quality election strategy.
• Outrageous quote of the week: “I think [Obama]’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.” —James Dobson, gay-hating [i.e., probably gay] Christian wackjob and founder of Focus on the Family.
• Really? Really? We’re going to talk about how Obama is on the wrong side of the “emotional” Elian Gonzalez issue? Really?
• If the Florida state budget is in such dire straights, how can we possibly afford what Time Magazine calls “the $1.75 billion deal to essentially purchase U.S. Sugar”?
• Eulogizing George Carlin.
• “Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes.”
• First it was those spoiled writers. Now, the Screen Actors Guild prepares to go on strike.
• R.I.P. Wilbur Hardee.

Ever wonder how to make a viral video? The process has been boiled down to these nine easy yet mostly duplicitous steps.

• Reintroducing Michelle Obama.
• The All-New Barack & Hillary Show to debut next week with a joint appearance to (what else?) rally donors.
• Obama up by six over McCain. That stat leaves ABC News wondering if it’s panic time … for Obama.
• Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi disassembles the Straight-Talk Express.
• Florida prepares to overhaul the method of tabulation of high school graduation rates. Want to bet the numbers go down?
• Lock up the pharmacists? Prescription drugs do far more societal damage than illegal ones.
• R.I.P. Cyd Charisse. If you’re under the age of 50, you just went “who?”
• The Celtics bury the Lakers in six.
• In an ongoing effort to piss of the AP* and get them to sue us, I will be running long quotes from AP stories for the foreseeable future. Today’s quote is from a story about Gov. Charlie restoring voting rights to 150,000 ex felons:

More than 115,000 former felons who completed their sentences have had their civil rights restored since a new state rule went into effect 14 months ago, Gov. Charlie Crist said.

The rule by the Board of Executive Clemency, which Crist chairs, restored rights almost automatically, ending a policy of requiring the panel to act individually on every restoration of rights request. The rights include voting and the ability to get state and local licenses for certain types of jobs.

“Once somebody has truly paid their debt to society, we should recognize it,” Crist said Tuesday. “We should welcome them back into society and give them that second chance. Who doesn’t deserve a second chance?”

The 115,000 former felons Crist cited account for more than half of all former felons in the state who have had their rights restored during the last 14 years, according to the governor.

The governor made the announcement at a two-day summit of state officials, lawmakers, community activists, prison ministers and others to brainstorm ideas for keeping former inmates from returning to crime after their release.

* – I had originally put periods after the A & P in AP. Fortunately, AP’s #1 fan sent me an e-mail informing me of my mistake. Thank’s #1.

Sen. Barack Obama’s appearance at the St. Pete Times Forum is over, but the battle for Florida’s 27 electoral votes is just getting underway. In a poll released Monday, Rassmussen has Sen. John McCain out in front of Obama 50%-40% in Florida. This 10-point lead is down from the 15-point advantage McCain enjoyed last month. Digging below the surface of the numbers reveals some other interesting tidbits:

• Obama leads among voters earning less than $40,000 a year — the group he’s struggled with the most in his race with Hillary.
• Obama is up 22 points among voters under 30. McCain leads among all other age groups.
• The God-fearing still love the Republicans, as McCain maintains a lead among churchgoers.
• McCain’s favorability rating is at 50%, Obama’s is at 48%. This represents a 12-point drop for McCain and a 6-point increase for Obama since April.
• Almost 30% of Democrats tell the pollster they will vote for McCain in the fall.

On that last point, Markos at Daily Kos is chalking up Obama’s weakness to the ongoing battle with Clinton and the raw feelings of her supporters. If that’s the case, Obama simply has to win back Florida Dems (something that seems very likely to happen before the election, primary bad blood or no) and the Sunshine State is a dead heat. With McCain behind in fundraising and currently purging unhappy lobbyists from his campaign staff at an alarming rate, a 10-point lead may not be very good news after all.

But don’t get too cocky yet, Obamaheads. Rasmussen still puts the likelihood of a McCain victory in Florida at 75%.

He shoots, he scores?

• The Rev. Jeremiah Wright speaks, people listen here, here, here and here.
• Good news from the NY Times: “Eight years after the debacle of ‘hanging chads,’ Florida once again seems to be courting electoral trouble.”
• Counting up all the new Democrats may take a while.
• This isn’t news, this is a sign of the apolocalypse. [Click at your own risk. Seriously.]
• Oil prices: Still cheaper than a condo in downtown St. Pete.
• Hot theft: Dashboard GPS units.
• The Bucs get speed, speed and more speed in this year’s NFL draft.
• I don’t believe Miley Cyrus. At all.

CLINTON DROPS OUT!!!!

• Joint Clinton/Obama press conference planned for 6:30 p.m. eastern.
• Insiders say campaign collapsed under fund-raising strain.
• Bill reportedly heartbroken he Hillary didn’t win.
• Obama campaign said to be elated, exhausted.
• Candidates agree to deal to seat Florida and Michigan delegations.
• Democratic party elders breathe a sigh of relief.
• How will the cable news networks fill the time between now and August?
• John McCain calls to congratulate Obama, negotiate public financing agreement.

(Photo Credit: Joe Crimmings Photography)

You really have to wonder about the Florida Democratic Party with Karen Thurman at the helm.

As I watched her being flailed by her own politicians this week as she floated a vote-by-mail scheme, I actually started to feel sorry for the former congresswoman. Finding a way to have the Florida Democratic National Convention seated despite the fact that (gasp!) Florida broke the rules seems an impossible task.

Here was the media and politico reaction to the best plan Thurman could come up with and the general situation in which Florida Democrats find themselves:

• The Miami Herald: It’s an “absurd idea…a last-ditch, Hail Mary pass that has failure written all over it.”
• Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Boca Raton: “a recipe for disaster.”
• Democratic Congressman and Hillary supporter Kendrick Meek: a “disaster, in my opinion. And I’m pretty sure the campaign shares that opinion.”
• Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe: “The people designing the likely mail-in plans here are Clinton supporters. So I think everyone has to be very cautious about that.”
• Time magazine: “What is it like being a perpetual punch-line?”
• Republican Gov. Charlie Crist: I’ll consider anything that doesn’t stick the taxpayers with the bill.

With those reviews already in hand, Thurman turned to the public at large via the Internet, soliciting its opinion on voting again my mail hoping to back up the results of Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller’s poll that showed 59 percent of Florida Dems want a re-vote. Her deadline for submitting opinions is Friday at quitting time. But I’m betting that the Thurman Mail-In Proposal of 2008 will be history some time over the next week, if not sooner. There’s all kinds of problems cited by friends and foes: the lack of a reliable mechanism to hold such a vote; the cost to the party; the lack of approval by the state Democratic Executive Committee so far; the problem of the party verifying signatures that they don’t have (only the supervisors of elections and the state elections division do, although Democrats believe they can get access to them); the pending Victor DiMaio lawsuit in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta seeing to reinstate the Florida delegates; and the possibility of a lawsuit by either presidential campaign depending on how a vote-by-mail would be structured or challenging the results afterward.

Kenneth Quinnell, prominent progressive blogger and president of the party’s Netroots Caucus, said the fight remains mostly an insider tale without long-term damage. If a re-vote happens, he said, Democrats will take part in large numbers, but he acknowledges “nobody’s really dying for it, either, it seems.”

No matter what kind of compromise the state and national parties reach before the convention, Florida Democratic voters need to realize they have twice been disenfranchised in presidential matters in less than eight years.
I guess what strikes me most is the apathy I hear about the whole voting mess, as if we are so beaten down in Florida, so used to being the butt of cable news and late night jokes, that we’ve lost the will to argue the matter. This was a much bigger story for the national press than it was for us here at home.

We just shrug our shoulders like Jake Gittes’ private eye colleagues in the last scene of Chinatown and say, with resignation, “Forget it, voters. It’s Floridatown.”

Get comfy. We’re going to be here a while.

• A “minor explosion” rocked a military recruiting station in Times Square this morning.
• The Clinton campaign plots their next move and take time out to fight like cats and dogs amongst themselves.
• What’s wrong with this New York Times headline: “Clinton Success Alters Delegate Race’s Dynamic”?
• Obama’s next move? Attack? Chase the super delegates? Cry a bit?
• Will Florida try and call “do over?”
• Ron Paul wins it!
• If you’ve ever wondered what Helen Keller looked like, so did she.
• Don’t let grandpa drive the fire truck.
• Big Cable vs. NFL Network.

(Photo Credit: Westendraider)

OK, considering the source, gotta take this with a grain of salt, but I have heard similar buzz over the weekend:

McCain came out of his South Carolina victory 10 days earlier with a Florida lead, but Romney was pulling even until the endorsement for McCain by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. The word in Florida GOP circles was that Crist resented unofficial support for Romney by Crist’s intraparty rival, former Gov. Jeb Bush.

When viewed through the prism of the Crist-Bush rivalry, as well as the former gov facilitating Romney’s quick machine ramp-up here, Crist’s risky last-minute endorsement of McCain makes a whole lot more sense. The risk paid off.

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.

A sampling of some of the incredible disconnect between what people say they believe in and the person (or issue) they choose to support:

• A Pasco County woman who says being against abortion is her No. 1 issue. So who is her man in the GOP primary? The one candidate who, as governor of Massachusetts, was pro-choice.
• The schoolteacher who says she is pro-choice. Who is her candidate in the Republican primary? The most ardent pro-lifer who has introduced legislation in Congress to overturn Roe v. Wade.

So, who voted, and (if you want to tell us) who did you vote for and why? And how did you vote on Amendment 1?

(I voted early, and as a registered NPA, I could only vote for the Amendment 1 question. Given my recent column on the matter, is it any surprise I voted against it?)

The Pinellas GOP reports a nice get: Rudy Giuliani is set to have a Town Hall-type meeting just before the local party’s monthly meeting on Monday, starting at 5:30 p.m. at Tucson’s on Ulmerton Road. Giuliani is doing a bus tour of Florida that day, and no surprise he would come to the voter-rich I-4 corridor and specifically Pinellas, where the party apparatus has endorsed him heartily, as many of them as former New Yorkers.

Also watch for a few presidential candidates to show up at the Pinellas Lincoln Day fundraising dinner on Jan. 26, just three days before the important Florida primary.