Month: January 2008

Why I Will Vote on Feb. 5 for the Democrat Who Wins Florida

Jon Ponder

The California primary is 11 days away, and I still have not chosen a candidate. This is a first for me.

Florida is the ideal proving ground for my vote. The Democrat who can win it there, can win it everywhere.

As far as the issues go, there is barely any daylight among the three Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. As a citizen, and particularly as a Democrat, I’d be happy if any of the three of them were president.

The whole “change” versus “experience” debate left me cold. There will be “change” no matter who is elected, and the main “experience” I’m looking for is a history of winning elections against Republicans.

The fighting between Clinton and Obama, which frequently reads as bickering — “Mom and Dad, quit fighting!” — may appear on the surface to be all about style and superficialities, like race and gender. But behind the finger-pointing, eye-gouging and hair-pulling there is a political street fight going on that is as serious as it is harrowing.

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Rudy Crashing and Burning in Florida

Trish

Rudy’s campaign bus on the fast track to nowhere in Florida

Word on the skreet is that Rudy is going down. In the polls, that is.

A photo op of the former mayor speeding in circles in his campaign bus around the racetrack inside the empty stadium, perhaps an almost too-perfect metaphor for his effort here

In Florida, a new poll shows McCain and Romney neck-and-neck for the lead, with 25 percent and 23 percent, while Giuliani and Mike Huckabee trail at 15 percent. More than one-fourth of the likely voters surveyed between Sunday and Tuesday 27 percent said they still may change their minds. The poll was sponsored by the St. Petersburg Times, The Miami Herald and Bay News 9.

Another survey, by Mason-Dixon and reported Thursday, showed Romney with 30 percent and McCain with 26 percent, while Giuliani had 18.

The ferret-faced former mayor is already backing away from his vow to win the Sunshine State, and downplaying its importance to his overall campaign. What usually follows such long-view, optimistic pronouncements is a concession speech.

Rudy’s campaign stops are growing increasingly like jokes that take so long to tell that by the time you hear the punchline you’ve forgotten the build-up. Or, to put it another way:

“Everywhere this guy has gone, he’s faded,” said GOP strategist Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster…

Giuliani faced crowds that were a bit flat and small earlier this week. He got polite applause in a large but half-empty community hall in Sun City Center, where retirement is the local industry. And only a few dozen people showed up at a banquet facility near downtown Orlando…

At one point this week, Giuliani made an unscheduled visit to the Daytona International Speedway for a photo op of the former mayor speeding in circles in his campaign bus around the racetrack inside the empty stadium, perhaps an almost too-perfect metaphor for his effort here.

Well put.

So that’s the good news. The bad news is Morman Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain are getting stronger.

I Didn’t Want to Waste My Vote So I Voted for John Edwards

Trish

It’s hard to make the case that you’re the grownup of the Democratic party while getting a noogie from David Letterman, but John Edwards does.

Thanks to early voting, I have as of today now cast my ballot for John Edwards three times — in the 2004 primary, the 2004 general (as V.P. of course), and the 2008 presidential preference primary. May the third time be the charm. And while I haven’t talked to a single soul in my area who plans to vote for Clinton or Obama, you’d think from listening to the pundits that I wasted my vote.

The worst thing anyone can say about John Edwards is that he paid too much for a haircut.

As All Things Democrat asked, why are the standards so different for Edwards than for the Republican pack?

The TV talking heads sure seem in a hurry to narrow down the presidential nominee field which seems almost totally exclusive to Democrats, while a few of the piss-poor-showing Republicans, included among them those with big bucks, do not appear to be subjected to the same rush despite their poorer showings.

…what’s strange is that [Edwards has] got at least half the delegates of Obama and Clinton WHILE, where Republicans like Thompson and Giuliani barely have a handful of delegates BETWEEN them, pundits aren’t shouting to push Fred and Rudy off the campaign trail as they are with Edwards. Why? What’s the difference?

Thompson, of course, has since dropped out but the question remains. Are Hillary and Barack really that riveting? Not to me, and the more time goes on, the more I agree with my friend Joe from the credit union. Joe worries that the damage being done by Clinton and Obama to each other now will carry over to the eventual contest against whoever the Republicans pick. At first I disagreed with him but the lower the blows go, the more I see his point.

Hillary’s lackluster service on the Wal-Mart board of directors and Obama’s dubious (or as he calls it, “bone-headed”) 17-year dealings with Chicago developer Tony Rezko won’t go away once the contest goes wide. But the worst thing anyone can say about John Edwards is that he paid too much for a haircut.

Yes, may the third time be the charm.

Miami Might Get Super-Secret Bill of Rights Tuesday

Buck Banks

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

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

Trish
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

Trish

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

Jon Ponder

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:

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