From the Orlando Sentinel:

Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp filed paperwork today to run for attorney general in 2010, even as an ethics complaint over his use of state planes remains unresolved.

Kottkamp, a trial attorney who has served as Florida’s second-in-command since January 2007, told reporters that the attorney general job is the “culmination of a lot of the experiences I’ve had in my life, it’s something that I feel passionate about.”

That was the direct message to Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, from a group of African-American media execs over the weekend:

“At the end of the day, it’s about money. If you buy advertising, you’re more likely to get coverage,” said Johnny Hunter, president of the Florida Association of Black Owned Media and publisher of Sarasota’s Tempo News.

That according to coverage of the meeting in the Orlando Sentinel. Greer’s response?

Greer promised that the party would stop ignoring black media. He said that mainstream newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Tribune and Tallahassee Democrat cover the party’s issues regardless of whether they advertise, but the party chairman nevertheless seemed willing to accept the quid-pro-quo arrangement.

“When I hear that when we advertise, the paper will be more likely to disseminate Republican issues, am I hearing right?” Greer asked. “I don’t understand the legitimacy of disseminating information and having a tie-in to revenue — but I get it.”

Do me and The Atlantic a favor and read the entire column and pass it along via e-mail to your goofy friends/relatives who bombard you with BS email about how we are becoming socialists.

Has anyone else noticed that Dick Cheney just won’t go away?  Maureen Dowd of The New York Times has.  Her take on Cheney as the new “Rogue Diva of Doom” after the jump.

In Dowd’s latest she writes:

Cheney has replaced Sarah Palin as Rogue Diva.  Just as Jeb Bush and other Republicans are getting kinder and gentler, Cheney has popped out of his dungeon, scary organ music blaring, to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing.

Read the rest of the article here.

This comes after Cheney appeared in an interview with CBS’ Bob Schieffer on Sunday still declaring the effectiveness and rightness of torture.

Cheney could very well be hurting the republican party rather than helping it. The GOP has been searching for a leader but instead has found nothing but prima donnas starting with Sarah Palin. During the McCain/Palin campaign, Joe the Plumber emerged as the Republican populist hero. Lately Rush Limbaugh has taken a leadership role for Republican purists. Just a week ago Ms. California stole the spotlight with her marriage protection activism. Now Cheney could be added to the lot of them as nothing but lost voices without a party to turn to.

One thing is for sure. Cheney isn’t going to provide strong leadership for the Republican Party because he doesn’t speak for the majority of conservatives. Leadership can only rise through the consensus of the Republican Party. SInce the party is rife with disagreement, and Cheney only exacerbates such disagreement, the party willl continue to struggle with its identity.

By Ben Luongo
PoHo contributor

Only after Charlie Crist announced his bid for the Senate was Marco Rubio’s campaign message, to use his words, “coming into focus.” After Crist announced his Senate candidacy, Rubio aired his first attack ad which linked Crist to President Barack Obama. Rubio then went on Fox News to pitch his campaign and talk about why Crist is not the man for the job.

The video to that interview is after the jump.

Rubio does have a political resume.  He used to serve as West Miami’s City Commissioner and then went on to serve in the House of Representatives.  In 2006 he was elected the Speaker of the Florida State House.  However, despite his experience, he comes off as a rookie, not only in comparison to Crist’s fundraising and name recognition, but more importantly because of his idealism.

Rubio starts the interview talking about “the crossroads” and what “we want republicanism to mean in the 21st century.”  He goes on to say “that’s what this election is going to be about, a very different view of what republicanism should be about.” However, the election shouldn’t be about what Rubio thinks republicanism should mean.  The election should be about what is in the best interest of Floridians and what they want, and after Florida voted for Obama and republican approval ratings dropped, it doesn’t seem like we want to talk about what republicanism means anymore.

Rubio has his ideals, and that’s fine, but the virtues of republican ideals are not enough to win a senate seat.  You have to convince the voters that you are the one to represent them. Some say that Rubio might have an edge on Crist because he can appeal to the Hispanic vote. However, it was the Hispanic vote that helped Obama take the state and linking your opponent to Obama is not a very effective way to reach out to those voters. Again, Rubio has to start thinking about how to attract votes and not worry about what it means to be Republican.

In short, if Rubio wants to win, then he has to start acting like this is an election, not a chance at redefining his party.

Conservative standard-bearer Marco Rubio has thrown his hat into the post-Mel Martinez 2010 U.S. Senate elections, setting up a likely battle royal with Gov. Charlie Crist that will be one of the national Republican Party’s highest profile battle between its conservative faction (Rubio, Jeb Bush) and its centrist, big-tent faction (Crist, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as examples).

Rubio made the announcement on the Spanish language Univision and followed up with a video on YouTube this morning.

Rubio says he wants a balanced budget amendment and pro-business laws. He also obliquely acknowledges the 800-pound GOP elephant in the room that is Crist: “I know that there are people more famous than I who will enter this race. But nothing in life worth doing is easy.”

Watch his announcement video after the jump:

Can the stimulus-lovin’ Charlie Crist possibly find a home in the increasingly right-wing GOP?

From the Times:

It’s a crazy question, considering the GOP these days is only marginally more popular than the flu, while the Republican governor of America’s biggest battleground state enjoys astronomical approval ratings.

But it’s worth pondering now that moderate Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has become a Democrat, and the political world is convinced that the moderate Florida governor is about to run for the U.S. Senate. If Crist runs and wins, he will join Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe – a pair reviled by many conservatives – as the only Republican senators who supported President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.

“If you agree with Susan Collins or Olympia Snowe on some of these issues, you might as well become a Democrat,” said former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Republican who is likely to run for the Senate, whether or not Crist does.

The first 100 days of the president’s administration is usually used as a report card to judge its success or gauge where it might be for the rest of its term. However, the closing of President Obama’s honeymoon may not even be the news headline as reports of Arlen Specter switching parties overshadows the president. This completely arbitrary 100th-day-mark might underscore more the status of the Republican Party than anything else.

Watch Arlen Specter’s statement after the jump.

Specter’s decision to switch parties would give the Democrats the 60 potential votes needed to defeat a filibuster. Now, whether the democrats could rely on specter to vote with the party the majority of the time or on the big issues is yet to be seen. His foreign policy views are quite hawkish and may not reflect the views of most democrats but he was in favor of the stimulus which suggests him to be a determining vote in certain domestic policy issues.

However, there is bigger background story going on here. His move to switch parties underscores the bleak status of the Republican Party. The Republican Party was not popular in public opinion polls during the end of the Bush era. In fact, the Bush Administration might be to blame for the dismal state of the GOP. The George W. Bush Administration, especially the Bush Doctrine, was a departure from traditional conservative paradigms. His government spending and international interventionism abandoned core Republican values and left the party bewildered and without focus. The only direction for the Republican Party after Bush was to further differentiate themselves from Democrats. This would ultimately divide the party between the moderates and extremists. Voices like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh didn’t, and still don’t, speak for every conservative. For months the media has been obsessed with the question of who runs the Republican Party, but no one knows. In the meantime, the RNC has acquired the moniker “Party of No.”

It’s no wonder that more people are moving to the left. Obama’s approval rating is higher than most current presidents after the first 100 days, and most people approve of his job so far. The RNC, on the other hand, is taking harsh measures to form cohesion in its party. RNC Chairman Michael Steele is threatening to withhold RNC funds from Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, two moderates who have sided with the president and backed the stimulus.

Steele playing hardball won’t keep the party together; rather it will probably drive them further apart. Threatening to withhold funds won’t prevent Republican dissenters, but it may give them an incentive to follow Specter’s lead and move to the left.

The Republican Party is in bad shape. It can’t produce any real options for policy to aid in our recession. They’re wandering along without a central figure to provide them with focus. Members are leaving the party and joining the Democrats. This first 100-day mark might be more about the state of the Republican Party than it is Obama.

Hillsborough County Republican Party Chairman Debbie Cox-Roush says it’s up to the state Republican Party whether Carol Carter can rescind her resignation from a county party post.

“We don’t have the authority to accept or reject Ms. Carter’s resign,” Cox-Roush said in an interview a few minutes ago. “It’s out of our hands and we are waiting for direction from the Republican Party of Florida.”

Carter resigned her post as Hillsborough County state committeewoman last week after it became publicly known that she had forwarded an email joke some considered racially insensitive. Today, she sent state party Chairman Jim Greer a letter seeking to rescind the resignation.

Read the full story here.