Day: June 19, 2008

Is There a Recall Election in Charlie Crist’s Future?

Trish

If the Florida governor’s election were held today, then judging by the state’s editorial writers, the winner would not be Charlie Crist.

Daytona News-Journal:

Miami Herald: “Gov. Charlie Crist’s stunning reversal of his position on drilling for oil and gas off the Florida coastline is all about politics and political ambition”

It should go down as one of the more mercenary flip-flops in the state’s history. With his eyes on John McCain’s ticket as a running mate, Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday fell behind McCain’s push for ending the moratorium on oil drilling along Florida’s coastline after years of favoring the ban without conditions. McCain was himself capitulating to the oil and gas industry, having backed the ban previously.

…Drilling for oil, which can’t happen for years, isn’t likely to affect consumers’ gas prices nearly as much as it will profit oil companies’ windfalls, which is what’s powering McCain’s switch. The oil and gas industry ranks 12th among his biggest donors. (The industry doesn’t appear on Barack Obama’s top-20 biggest industry donors.)

St. Petersburg Times:

Florida suddenly seems on the verge of abandoning a firm bipartisan consensus against offshore drilling that has governed this state for decades. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, says we ought to do it — citing, yes, gas prices and “energy independence.” The current president says so, too. So now Florida’s governor, Charlie Crist, has weakened his own long-term opposition, presto, change-o!

South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

Gov. Charlie Crist’s decision to abandon the once nearly universal, bipartisan opposition to oil and gas drilling in coastal waters off Florida has led some people to wonder whether he is attempting to kiss up to Sen. John McCain in hopes of landing a spot on the national ticket.

Prompting the frenzy of speculation: McCain’s proposal Tuesday to lift the ban on oil and gas production off Florida and other environmentally sensitive areas, which was immediately backed by Crist only a week after he had said he opposed coastal drilling.

“He seems to be willing to do anything to help the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. He has shown that he’s willing to backtrack against his promises,” said Daniel Smith, associate professor of political science at the University of Florida…

Miami Herald:

Gov. Charlie Crist’s stunning reversal of his position on drilling for oil and gas off the Florida coastline is all about politics and political ambition…Gov. Crist announced his change of policy on Tuesday, fast on the heels of similar declarations by Sen. John McCain and President Bush. They now support lifting a federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along the U.S. coastline. Coincidence? Not a chance.

The president, governor and senator have made a political calculation that Americans are so upset about runaway gas prices and so fearful of what the future holds that they will buy into any scheme to bring some relief — no matter how unlikely the prospects are for meaningful change…

None of these valid concerns about offshore drilling has changed. What has changed now, though, is that Sen. McCain is looking for a vice-presidential running mate, Gov. Crist is more than flattered to be considered for the job, and President Bush is looking for anything to distract from a failed war, raging deficits and a collapsing economy.

Palm Beach Post:

When the choice is between doing what’s best for Florida and what’s best for John McCain/Charlie Crist, the governor on Tuesday let it be known that he’s going to make the call based on political ambition.

…soaring gasoline prices have given Republicans and their presidential candidate a severe image problem. The party, with two oil men at the top, is cozy with the oil giants who are earning record profits while the rest of America sweats it out at the pump…the Republican solution is to give the oil companies the plum they have been seeking so long, the right to drill in environmentally sensitive areas.

Orlando Sentinel:

Vice presidential candidate Charlie Crist, formerly Florida’s environmental governor, showed on Tuesday what drives him. Polls, he said, show that “people are much more favorably inclined” these days to expand offshore drilling to help ease their pain at the gas pump. Polls and an overwhelming desire to actually become presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate.

Update: Texas GOP Bans Vendor of Racist Obama Button

Jon Ponder

Updating Trish’s story from Thursday, “The Hot Item at the Texas Republican Convention,” the Texas Republican Party has moved to distance itself from a vendor who sold buttons at the party’s state convention that bore a racist message about Barack Obama: “If Obama is president … will we still call it The White House?”

According to The Conservative Voice, the Texas GOP says it will donate $1,500 in rent paid by the vendor, Republicanmarket.com, to victims of the flooding in the Midwest.

Said Texas GOP spokesman Hans Klingle, “This vendor need not apply to another Texas GOP state convention. We will neither tolerate nor profit from bigotry.”

How conservative is the Texas GOP? The Conservative Voice notes that in “1998, the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest organization of gay Republicans, was denied a booth at the GOP state convention in Fort Worth and likened to the Ku Klux Klan by a Texas Republican Party spokesman. “We don’t allow pedophiles, transvestites or cross-dressers, either,” then-GOP spokesman Robert Black said at the time.

The fact that the Texas GOP has shifted to the left on an issue like this backs up assertions by Arianna Huffington and others that liberal positions are increasingly becoming mainstream.

Florida’s Governor Headed Toward a Perfect Storm Over Oil?

Buck Banks

serve2preserve.jpgMaybe it’s all part of his ongoing effort to appear more macho — you know, “Oil Rigger Charlie” — but Florida Governor Charlie Crist’s about-face on drilling for oil off Florida’s coasts took most of us by surprise this week. See, it was just a year ago that Crist called his first climate control summit here in Miami. Pensito Review blogged live from the conference, and you can review our coverage here.

The timing of his announcement this week that he’ll do anything to be vice president … oh wait, I mean his announcement that he backs John McCain’s crazy plan to open our national coastline to the oil companies is odd. See, the guv’s second climate change summit is slated for next week — Tuesday and Wednesday, June 25-26. Pensito Review will be there again, live blogging and looking for interesting stories like “Bike Guy.”

Here’s the wording of the first press release for the 2008 event:

Building on the foundation for Florida’s energy future began at last year’s summit, the 2008 summit will focus on stimulating economic development in clean technologies as well as “greening” Florida’s business community.

“Florida’s businesses continue to demonstrate that there is gold in green, and climate-friendly energy sources – like ethanol and solar energy – are bringing new prospects for our state,” said Governor Charlie Crist. “Encouraging companies to do business the green way as well as building a strong market in renewable energy technologies in the Sunshine State will strengthen our energy and economic future and protect our natural environment for generations to come.”

Whoa, how things have changed since April 29, when the governor’s office issued the release. Here’s some more insights into Crist’s former position on the environment:

Building on the policy framework of the executive orders signed at the 2007 summit, this year’s summit focuses on developing Florida’s renewable and alternative energy industries. By encouraging companies to invest in our state’s energy future, Florida will transform its energy marketplace to enhance fuel diversity, lessen dependence on foreign sources of oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The 2008 summit will bring together industry leaders, policy makers, academics, scientists, environmentalists and the business community to explore opportunities for expanding Florida’s renewable and alternative energy marketplace and greening our business community.

Since last year’s summit, Florida’s “green” economy has grown significantly. Progress Energy along with Biomass Gas & Electric of Atlanta recently announced a partnership to build in North Florida the largest waste-wood biomass plant in the nation, converting waste wood to electricity. FPL Group, one of the largest utilities in the country, has a number of solar and wind energy projects across Florida, including a $2.4 billion investment in a 300 megawatt solar facility. Also, during the Governor’s trade mission to Brazil last year, a $183 million agreement was signed between Renewable Fuels of Tallahassee LLC and Controlsud International Group to build a system that converts trash into energy in Tallahassee.

I suppose Crist’s new position, let’s call it Willing to Be Drilling, does fit into his old position, which we’ll call Hell No, You Can’t Drill, in that it reduces our dependence on foreign fuel sources. And I guess scrapping his old position would provide more trash fuel for that energy plant in Tallahassee.

So, when Crist sits up in front of the media attending the summit next week, what can we expect? Tough questioning, probing for the truth behind Charlie’s conversion, hostility from the Fourth Estate?

Stay tuned.

Gay Marriage in West Hollywood, Day One: 6 Helicopters, Mr. Sulu, 3 Protesters, No Wrath of God … So Far

Jon Ponder

I live about 100 yards from West Hollywood City Hall so when the first marriage licenses were issued to gay people there on Tuesday, it was a big day for news helicopters overhead. I, of course, watched the festivities as reported by CNN’s Thelma Gutierrez, via satellite feed to Atlanta, routed back to me 3,000 miles across the country by cable. What a whacky world.

She was not alone. According to WeHo News, our local online-only newspaper, media outlets on the scene also included Tokyo Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Wall Street Journal, NY Times and the Washington Post.

Here’s how WeHo News described the first minutes of the gold-ring rush:

Beginning at 8:30 am, the affair had all the pomp and circumstance the City and County could provide, complete with a ribbon cutting and formal announcements and speeches, half a dozen marriage tents, balloons, floral arrangements and Hollywood stars.

Giving Hollywood flavor to the proceedings (explaining the larger than usual media presence), George Takei, the actor who played the character “Sulu” on the original Star Trek, now 71 years old, and his beau Brad Altman, 54, became the first couple duly licensed by the County at the West Hollywood temporary licensing branch at WeHo Park Auditorium.

In his public remarks, Mr. Takei declared his excitement, saying, “it’s going to be the only day like this in our lives and it is the only day like this in the history of America.”

Finishing with the Vulcan split finger hand sign, he declared, “Let equality live long and prosper!”

And some statistics:

Across the state, at least 2386 licenses were issued, up from 460 on an average day.

The LA County Registrar/Recorder reported that 648 licenses issued in the county compared to 133 normally – an increase of 415, or almost three times.

In West Hollywood, 204 couples got licenses and 114 ceremonies made honest men and women out of 228 people.

Interestingly, WeHo News only spotted three protesters at City Hall, and only one of them carried a sign.

Relatedly, fully 48 hours after gay people began marrying, there has been no noticeable disintegration in heterosexual marriage in California, nor has there been word of the wrath of God — no floods, famine, pestilence, plagues of locust or the rest.

So far…

Poll: McCain Leads Obama Among White Evangelicals 68% to 22%

Jon Ponder

So much for the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothing from the Christian right about John McCain earlier this year:
Message from McCain to Christian Nationalists: “I’m just not that into you.”

A Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week found McCain collecting about 68 percent of the white evangelical vote, compared to Barack Obama’s 22 percent. That number is very similar to level of support President Bush received in June 2004, when he led then Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry 65 to 30 among white evangelicals. And it’s essentially unchanged from polls in March, despite the Arizona senator’s distancing of himself from evangelical pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee last month.

In November 2004, Bush won 78 percent of evangelical voters and inspired a strong turnout among them in key states like Ohio, suggesting that McCain can still grow his level of support among this key GOP voting block.

The message here is that McCain can take these voters for granted, as he moves leftward to the center in the fall. Right?

[…]

Poll: Obama Pulls Ahead in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania

Jon Ponder

There is good news for the campaign of Barack Obama in polls from states that are traditionally keys to winning the general election. However, it is too soon to tell if the upticks are indicators of a trend toward Obama or simply “bumps” resulting from his finally clinching the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton.

Quinnipiac Polls in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania released Wednesday indicate that Barack Obama leads John McCain in all three battleground states. Obama does well among women in all three states, suggesting Hillary Clinton voters are shifting their support to him, but is behind McCain among white voters overall in Florida, by 10 points, and in Ohio, by 3 points:

Sen. Obama leads 47 percent to 43 percent in Florida, within the margin of error. His support among black voters is overwhelming at 95 percent. He carries female voters as well, 50 percent to 40 percent. But Sen. McCain leads among men 47 percent to 44 percent, and easily carries white voters overall, 50 percent to 40 percent.

Pennsylvania voters continue their trend of leaning Democratic, giving Sen. Obama a solid lead of 52 percent to 40 percent. The Democrat dominates among women, 57 percent to 34 percent, but Sen. McCain leads among men. Among white voters, Sen. Obama leads by a narrow margin, 47 percent to 44 percent.

The Ohio results might be the best news for Sen. Obama. He is leading there 48 percent to 42 percent, Quinnipiac finds. Ohio has been key to Republican general-election strategies for a generation. President Bush won there narrowly in 2004, propelling him to victory over Democrat John Kerry.

Sen. Obama’s Ohio advantage is attributed in large measure to women, among whom he holds a 51 percent-to-39 percent advantage. The two candidates are virtually tied among men, with Sen. McCain up 46 percent to 45 percent. Sen. Obama dominates with black voters, while Sen. McCain narrowly carries white voters, 47 percent to 44 percent.

A recent survey in Virginia from Public Policy Polling found gave Obama a nominal lead, 47 percent to McCain’s 45 percent, which is within the margin of error. Still, any lead at all for a Democrat is remarkable in Virginia, which has been a Republican stronghold in presidential elections for decades.

In Wisconsin, SurveyUSA shows Obama with a strong lead over McCain, 52 percent to 43 percent.

A Rasmussen poll from Michigan gives Obama a slight lead, 45 percent to 42 percent.

Reacting to the overall numbers, Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said, “Here’s the real question: Is this all the bump he’s getting from wrapping up the nomination? … If this is the entire bump, it’s not that big a bump.”