Tag: Florida

Occupy the Super PAC: Credo Targets Tea Party Freshmen

Jon Ponder

logo-credo-super-pacHere’s an idea for turning the Citizens United lemons into progressive lemonade, via The Hill:

A new liberal super-PAC called Credo has announced its first six targets of the 2012 campaign: GOP Reps. Joe Walsh (Ill.), Steve King (Iowa), Allen West (Fla.)*, Sean Duffy (Wis.), Chip Cravaack (Minn.) and Frank Guinta (N.H.).

All six are vulnerable: Walsh and West face uphill battles for reelection, while Duffy, Cravack, King and Guinta are all top Democratic targets.

A group spokesperson said it will release the names of its donors, and that it already had more than 13,000 individuals backing it. The group plans to eventually get involved in 10 House races and spend at least $3 million, with campaign offices open in each member’s district.

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In Florida GOP Primary, 41% of Tea Party Supporters Voted for Big Government Republican Romney

Jon Ponder

Just two years after Florida Republicans elected a corporatist tea-party candidate Rick Scott as governor, with a narrow, 48.9 percent to 47.7 percent win over his Democratic rival Alex Sink, these same voters tacked decisively to the left in their presidential primary election yesterday, giving Mitt Romney, the former liberal Republican governor of Massachusetts, a decisive 14-point win over tea party-aligned, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

All four Republican presidential candidates support criminalizing abortion, which would require a huge new government bureaucracy to monitor the medical records of the 4 million American women who become pregnant each year

Granted, pickings were slim for Florida’s “true” conservatives. In a field of four, two of the candidates — Romney and Gingrich — have big government records. In the past, Romney has supported women’s reproductive rights and gay rights and imposed restrictions on guns. He also implemented the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s individual mandate as a big-government solution to health-insurance reform when he was governor of Massachusetts. Gingrich, who took millions in lobbying fees from federal housing agencies after he was forced out of Congress, has supported climate science in the past and advocated for NASA, the government-run space agency, while campaigning in Florida last week.

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Many Florida Republicans Not Ready to Choose

Trish

1 in 3

Number of registered Republican voters in Florida who say they are still making up their minds who to vote for in less than a week. Their candidates have one more “debate,” as the press conference/Greek chorus/American Idol/Survivor T.V. contests are called, before the Florida primary. Another 64% of Florida Republicans said they have made their choice and will stick with it.

Law Makers Have to Live With Consequences of Their Own Gun Laws

Trish

concealed Guns were king during the last couple of legislative sessions in Florida. The Republican super-majorities of both chambers passed laws to imprison pediatricians who so much as asked if there was a gun in the home. They voted to allow visitors in state parks to bring all the guns they wanted into campsites, where they could presumably blast away at fellow campers who seem threatening. At the same time, they worked tirelessly to ensure that employers on private property could not set their own rules prohibiting employees from bringing guns to work, which surely renders annual evaluations much more high stakes.

Florida’s very own Marion Hammer, inducted into the Florida Woman’s Hall of Fame by former Gov. Jeb Bush, and longtime National Rifle Association (NRA) head and lobbyist, led the way on expanding the rights of guns to go wherever they wanted, no questions asked (under penalty of prison). The Republicans in the Florida House and Senate just could not seem to do enough of her bidding.

And now they have to live with it. In a story surely destined for the Department of Ironies, the Florida legislature is finding out firsthand what it means to bring guns into everyone’s personal space. And many of them don’t like it.

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Mediocre and Dim: What Passes for Best and Brightest in the GOP

Trish
Mary Bono
Mack and Mary Bono, aka his Gingrich Problem

We’re not the only ones to notice that Connie Mack IV, nee Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, is one of the lightest weight lightweights ever to run on the Republican ticket for the Senate from Florida, and that’s saying something.

After all, this is the state that sent George LeMieux, whose claim to fame might be only that his last name contains more vowels than consonants, to fill the spot vacated by Mel Martinez, who quit partway through his term to pursue closer family relations.

That tendency seems to be largely Republican in nature, but at least Martinez wasn’t trying to spend more time with Sarah Palin’s family.

I digress.

The point is, someone else is taking a look at Mack IV (R), now running for the seat held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D), and coming up underwhelmed.

Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sent a memo to Mack from his fictitious image consulting firm. In it, he presented Mack with answers he might use to address issues uncovered by opposition research.

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You Have to Spend Money to Win Elections

Trish

2

Number of non-competitive state legislative contests, out of 84, won in Florida by the candidate who spent less money in 2010. Non-competitive on a monetary scale means that one side raised more than twice as much as the closest opponent. That comes out to 97.7% of those with a funding advantage winning. Only 16 of 143 races were competitive, or 11%. California had even fewer competitive races, at 4%.

Pick the Right Name if You Want to Win in Politics

Trish

40% – 42%

The results of a Quinnipiac poll on the Florida Senate race. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Ft Myers) garnered 40% support while incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) got 42%. Name recognition was cited as the main factor in Mack’s popularity, since he is the fourth person to be named Connie Mack, starting with his Baseball Hall of Famer greatgrandfather. Mack IV is also the husband of Rep. Mary Bono (who gained her seat upon the death of husband Sonny Bono) but has done little of note in Congress, where he is Chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere within the Foreign Affairs Committee.

The (Tea) Party’s Over: Top Republicans Shunning Florida Tea Party

Trish
ScottTeaSign
So last year.

When you think of the Florida tea party, the names Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Marco Rubio come to mind but neither man came to their state’s tea party convention this weekend.* A new trend of ignoring the once ascendant Koch-funded effort seems to be under way.

It’s hard not to think there’s a connection between the decline in the popularity of the tea party and the generally more favorable ratings for the Occupy movement. Nowhere was the so-last-year quality of support for tea partiers more evident than at their own Florida convention.

Of the major presidential candidates, only Rick Santorum confirmed to the Tampa Tribune this week that he’s attending. Ron Paul’s campaign couldn’t be reached for comment; the event isn’t on his campaign web site schedule, although event organizers said he’ll be there. Spokesmen for Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney all said they won’t make it…

“It’s like they’re throwing a party and the guests of honor aren’t going to show up,” said retired University of South Florida political scientist Darryl Paulson, a Republican.

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Jeb Bush: Who Republicans Evoke When They Can’t Beat Democrats

Trish

With the people in the field right now, I think it will be difficult to beat Bill Nelson. I still think Jeb Bush might don the cape and get in.

Florida State Senate Pres. Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), discussing the U.S. Senate race for the seat currently held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). Haridopolos dropped out of the contest this year, leaving challengers that Vice Pres. Joe Biden referred to at the recent Florida Democratic Convention as, “the seven dwarfs.”