Day: January 23, 2008
Miami Might Get Super-Secret Bill of Rights Tuesday
I just found out from the Miami Herald that come Jan. 29, I will have the opportunity to vote for a “citizens’ bill of rights.” Apparently, the thing will promote religious freedom, clean air and scenic beauty, as well as ban discrimination on the basis of domestic relationship status, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
‘It would bring a modern approach to people’s rights in the city of Miami, including sexual preference and gender identification.’
— Marc Sarnoff
— Marc Sarnoff
That’s pretty unusual in a city where one’s rights are only guaranteed to the extent that one aggressively exerts them. And I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about it:
“I’m shocked,” said Ron Brenesky, a co-founder of Unity Coalition, one of Miami-Dade County’s leading Hispanic gay-rights groups. “I commend the city for trying to do this. I commend the spirit, but not the method. We should have been aware. At least we would have gotten our people out to vote.”
Anthony Verdugo, executive director of Miami-Dade’s Christian Family Coalition, said that if he had known about the charter amendment, he’d have urged supporters to vote no. ”Obviously, we would not be in support of it,” Verdugo said.
Heddy Peña, executive director of SAVE, Miami-Dade County’s largest gay-rights group, said her organization has been sending out e-mails urging supporters to vote yes.
”We’ve been trying not to call special attention so that it becomes highly politicized,” Peña said. “You politicize it and you have a fight on your hands.”
Of course, the Miami City Commission is used to operating under the public’s radar, though usually it’s to issue no-bid contracts and no-strings appropriations and sweetheart deals to politically connected developers. But this time it appears it used its considerable power as a force of good, for a change.
Credited with bringing the bill to fruition is Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, a longtime community activist who represents my district. Here’s how he describes the bill of rights:
”It will be a way for us to create further ordinances for green space, open space and quality of life issues because the citizens of Miami will be making a statement that view corridors and scenic beauty are important to them,” Sarnoff says. “It would bring a modern approach to people’s rights in the city of Miami, including sexual preference and gender identification as classifications that are rights that will be upheld in the city of Miami.”
But now the cat’s out of the bag with a full week to go before the primary. It will be interesting to see whether the militant Christianists will be able to organize a campaign against the rights package in time to spike it.
Firefighters Unveil Rudy Rat in Orlando
They’re pointing to “Rudy” on the rat’s belly. It does kind of resemble him.People refer frequently to the “rat” in Central Florida, but they usually mean Mickey Mouse. New York firefighters and the families of 9/11 victims are talking about another rodent: Rudy Guiliani.
Rudy is staking his campaign on Florida, home to millions of New York transplants either all or part of the year. Knowing this, those he betrayed on Sept. 11, 2001 are fighting him just as hard in the Sunshine State.
The firefighters’ national labor union and a group of Sept. 11 families brought the rally to Florida because the state figures prominently in Giuliani’s primary strategy. Firefighters and their families vowed to dog the former New York mayor at all of his Florida campaign stops.
The rally started at the Orlando union hall, where participants posed with a 16-foot inflatable rat meant to represent Giuliani, and continued in front of Orlando City Hall with a mix of local firefighters, New York firefighters and families that had lost loved ones.
If you’re not up to speed on why the firefighters hate Rudy so much, do bone up.
“Firefighters hate Rudy’s guts, and when you hear Rudy’s name a four-letter word in a firehouse in New York City,” said [Jim Riches, a deputy chief in the New York Fire Department], who recovered the remains of his own son, firefighter Jimmy Riches, from the rubble of Ground Zero.
Mitt Insults Half the Crowd in North Florida
Fellow Pensito Review editor Jon already chronicled the wildly discordant drop-in by Mitt Romney to a Martin Luther King Day parade staging area in Jacksonville. Jon posted the video which shows Mitt pointing at lots of black children but trying hard not to touch one, and most definitely not kissing any black babies even though he commented extensively on their attire — from about 12 to 14 inches back.
To the clueless Mitt and his handlers, it looked perfect. To those in the crowd, it looked like an idiot was cavorting in their midst.
Last night I got to hear from a coworker what the formal Mitt rally was like. My pal, a 20-something Georgia-born Libertarian, has vowed to hear any candidate who actually makes a stop in Jacksonville. That lets out any Democrats, of course, but just this past weekend he took in both Mitt and Rudy. He had previously witnessed a rare Fred Thompson appearance, but obviously he won’t need to remember that one now.
When my attractive blond friend and his attractive blond wife arrived, they were grabbed by Mitt’s handlers. The goons asked if he and his wife wanted two seats together, and before he finished saying yes, they frog-marched the couple to the front of the crowd and deposited them directly in front of the podium. Before leaving, they slapped stickers on their chests that said, “Gators for Mitt” and shoved flags into their hands.
My friend, who forces me to watch episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, found all this entertaining in a Larry David kind of way. See, it’s like this. Yes, Florida is a huge college football state. But — and this is a very important “but” — not everyone roots for the same team. There are Gators and Seminoles and up this way, even quite a few Georgia Bulldog fans. Down in Buck’s neck of the woods, it’s orange and green Hurricane country. But in North Florida, even more polarizing than whether you’re a Democrat or Republican is whether you’re a Gator or a Seminole. A mixed marriage is not one where the couple differs racially, but one in which the husband or wife supports Florida State while the mate supports the University of Florida.
So just like Mitt’s yucking it up as if he was at a Saturday afternoon barbecue instead of getting ready to march in solemn remembrance of a fallen leader, this photo op fell flat. To the clueless Mitt and his handlers, it looked perfect. To those in the crowd, it looked like an idiot was cavorting in their midst.
My friend, an ardent Bulldog fan, wore the Gator sticker and waved the flag. Later that night, there he was, with his wife, out front on CNN, ABC, and all the local stations, just like Mitt’s crew intended. But I’m pretty sure the thoughts in his head were not what Mitt was going for: “What a putz. My God, what a putz.”
LAT Columnist: New Budget Crisis Makes Conditions Right to Recall Schwarzenegger
Alarming news from California has been lost in the noise of the national election coverage. Nearly five years after ousting Gov. Gray Davis because California faced a $14 billion deficit, the state once again faces a $14 billion deficit — and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening draconian budget cuts to education and healthcare, as well as the release of thousands of prison inmates and closure of 48 state parks, just for starters.
“Is it time for Total Recall: The Sequel?”
– Lopez
During the Republicans’ phony 2003 recall election, Schwarzenegger excoriated Davis over the financial crisis, which, in reality, was caused by the simultaneous dot-com collapse and the Enron shenanigans of Dick Cheney and Ken Lay that exploded California energy costs.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez has suggested that the time might be right for another recall:
Campaign ’08: ‘Fixin’ To Get Ready Fred’ Thompson Shuffles Offstage
The first rat deserted the Fred Thompson campaign’s sinking ship yesterday when former N.Y. Sen. Al D’Amato — who famously loathes fellow New Yorker Rudolph Giuliani — scurried onto the more seaworthy vessel of John McCain.
A few hours later, Thompson announced he was leaving the race:
Thompson bowed to what became inevitable after his third-place showing in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. Less than an hour after the polls closed that night, when it was already evident he would be an also-ran, Thompson addressed his supporters in the state — remarks that walked right up to a withdrawal but stopped just short of it. Since then, he has been absent from the campaign trail.
Thompson’s campaign was fabricated in the lofty realms of the Beltway’s GOP ivory tower: He was an actor like Reagan, a Southerner and a conservative. Never mind the fact he was a K Street lobbyist for 18 years, which was twice as long as he served in the U.S. Senate. What could go wrong?
In a rare, funny moment on “Saturday Night Live,” a send-up of Thompson captured what was wrong with his campaign. When asked to rate his desire to be president, the actor spoofing Thompson said something like, “I’d give it about a six.”
In the five contests so far, Thompson’s campaign accrued just five delegates to the GOP Convention this summer.
Poll: McCain Is Tied with ‘Undecided’ for Lead in California GOP Primary
A whopping 23 percent of California Republicans say they still don’t know who they will vote for.
In California, the leader in the GOP race in the run-up to the Feb. 5 primary has switched, according to the latest Field Poll, with Rudolph Giuliani dropping from a strong first to an anemic third, with 13 percent, falling behind John McCain and Mitt Romney, who are in a statistical tie, with 23 percent and 21 percent, respectively. Mike Huckabee is fourth, but in a statistical tie with Giuliani at 12 percent.
In the previous two editions of the poll, from December and October last year, Giuliani had a double digit lead. In December, Giuliani had 25 percent to Huckabee’s 17 percent. Romney had 15 percent and McCain 12 percent. In October, the poll showed Giuliani with 25 percent, Romney with 13 percent and McCain with 12 percent.
Perhaps the most interesting, and determinative, number in the new poll, however, is the number of California Republicans who are undecided two weeks before the vote: a whopping 23 percent say they still don’t know who they will vote for.
Update: Per the comment below, Ron Paul has 7 percent now, which is up from 4 percent in December and double his 3 percent support in October.
