Tag: Elections

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Pensito Review Interview: Brian Moore, Independent Candidate for U.S. Senate from Florida

Buck Banks

Brian Moore is running against Bill Nelson and Katherine Harris for U.S. Senate, but most people in Florida don’t know that. I heard of him when he received some media coverage by going to Cuba the night of the first Nelson-Harris debate.

I was intrigued by a guy who, like me, is a political independent, and who was savvy enough to figure out a way to garner some media coverage for his campaign while the Republican and Democratic candidates traded platitudes before a public television audience.

I contacted Moore’s campaign to see if he would agree to an e-mail interview. He was amenable, and what follows is the exchange between Brian Moore and me from Monday, Oct. 30.

Moore is 63, lives in Spring Hill, Fla., and has run for mayor and city council of Washington, D.C., and has mounted a campaign for the House of Representatives in 2002 and 2004. He has never won an election, though he has served in a variety of civic and activist organizations for 34 years.

PENSITO REVIEW: What gave you the idea to go to Cuba when the debate between Bill Nelson and Katherine Harris was broadcast?

BRIAN MOORE: I had to do something that could top them, and show up the hypocrisy of our so-called “Democratic system.” Cuba seemed a natural, because supposedly that is where there are no freedoms and Democratic rights. Plus, I could speak their language, the embargo was a contrast to my opponents, and the relevancy of Cuba to Florida was very high. In addition, I am an advocate for a national health care system, and their system is universal, comprehensive, accessible, portable and preventive.

[…]

Wouldn’t It Be Simpler to Drink a Shot?

Trish

Sometimes I see fellow editor Buck’s point about the emails from the Florida Democratic campaigns. This just in from governor’s candidate Jim Davis in regard to his debate tonight with Republican Charlie Crist:

Try playing this game, whether you’re attending a debate watch party, sitting around with your friends and family, or watching the debate by yourself at home. Grab a piece of paper and make a checkmark every time Charlie does one of the following:

* Each time Charlie calls for “more of the same,” “stay the course,” or any other reference to continuing the way things are going now
* Each time Charlie says “double the homestead exemption” – because it means Florida will have to wait four years for tax relief
* Each time Charlie mentions Jeb Bush
* Each time Charlie doesn’t answer the question (double it if Chris Matthews calls him on it)
* Each time Charlie gets visibly flustered or angry
* Each time Charlie expresses his love for Ronald Reagan
* Each time Charlie refers to himself as “the happy warrior”

At the end of the night, count all checkmarks and ask everyone to go online and contribute at least a dollar for each checkmark.

I think the chances of Charlie doing any of these things, now that he’s seen this email, are slim. If Davis really wanted to see Crist get “flustered or angry” he would have Matthews ask him why, as a gay man, he would be a Republican.

More on the Story That a Crist Male Ex-Lover Spilled the Beans

Trish

A Palm Beach independent weekly has more on the story that a former Katherine Harris staffer was heard by multiple sources to say he is one of the ex-lovers of Florida Republican governor’s candidate Charlie Crist.

The GOP staffer, 21-year-old Jason Wetherington, told friends at separate social functions in August that he had sex with Crist, according to two credible and independent sources who heard Wetherington make the claim first-hand.

‘”He was like [Katherine] Harris’s gay valet,” the source said.

Wetherington, who recently worked as a field director for U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris and currently works for state representative Ellyn Bodganoff’s reelection campaign, also named a man whom he said is Crist’s long-term partner, a convicted thief named Bruce Carlton Jordan who also recently worked for Harris in her long-shot Senate bid…

Jordan was charged in 2003 with stealing thousands of dollars from two organizations for whom he worked, including the Tallahassee-based Florida Funeral Directors Association, where he served as executive director. He completed a 60-day jail sentence in February and will be on probation until the year 2011, according to state records.

Sometimes, the very way someone denies something makes it hard to believe they could be telling the truth. This is one of those cases. Not only is Crist denying he and Jordan are long-time lovers, he says he can’t place the name or face.

When the [Miami] Herald questioned Crist about Jordan this past August, the frontrunner in the governor’s race told the newspaper that he doesn’t remember the man. “I don’t know who Bruce Jordan is,” he said at the time. “It doesn’t mean I haven’t met him. I don’t know who you are speaking about.”

I asked Crist during a phone interview on Monday morning if he had ever had sex with Jordan.

“No,” he said. “I don’t recall the name.”

That Crist doesn’t remember Jordan seemed incredible to me. Not only did the attorney general make a special appearance at the funeral directors’ conference, but former presidents of the association say Jordan was known to be pals with Crist.

Wetherington, a former Florida Senate page himself, publicly denies an affair with Crist. Privately it’s a different matter. […]

Poll: Middle Class Set to Swing to Dems Nov. 7

Jon Ponder

I’ve been pessimistic about the elections lately but this cheered me up:

A massive apparent move by the middle class away from the Republicans has 56 percent of likely voters saying they plan to vote to send a Democrat to the House on Nov. 7 compared with 37 percent who said they would vote for President George W. Bush’s Republicans, the latest Associated Press-AOL News poll shows.

If the tally bears this out a week from next Tuesday, Republican control of the House of Representatives could become a victim of the Iraq war. Voters rated the war and the economy as their top issues in the poll released Thursday.

Middle-class voters deserted the Democrats a dozen years ago, but the promise of their return is giving the party its best chance to reclaim the House of Representatives since the Republicans swept Democrats from power in 1994. The AP-AOL survey found voters leaning considerably more toward Democrats in the final weeks of the campaign.

Welcome back, homies.

Wal-Mart Fires Producer of Racist Ad in Tenn. Senate Race

Jon Ponder

Who knew the producer of the anti-Harold Ford racist ad that was paid for by Ken Mehlman and the Republican National Committee was named Terry Nelson — or that he worked for Wal-Mart? We all know it now, thanks to the fact that Wal-Mart forced Nelson to resign late on Friday.

They fired him to keep in good standing with their African-American customers, obviously, so while it doesn’t make Wal-Mart any less evil, it does keep the story alive into the weekend news cycle, for whatever that is worth:

In submitting his [forced] resignation, Terry Nelson said Wal-Mart had “come under political pressure from liberal special interest groups” as well as labor unions. “It’s unfortunate that this pressure has had an impact on Wal-Mart.”

In an interview, he said of the commercial that critics deemed racist: “There was no intention to offend anybody and it’s unfortunate if people took offense. That was certainly not what people planned for or hoped for.”

Of course not, Terry. You accidentally cast a white woman as the hootchy-mama who pouts as she says, “Harold, call me.”

Surprise! Saddam Death Penalty to be Announced Two Days before U.S. Elections

Jon Ponder
The timing of the verdict to complement the GOP’s new and highly effective GOTV “microtargeting” campaign is way too perfect.

You probably missed this story because it has barely been covered, but earlier this month the Iraqi court that is trying Saddam Hussein re-scheduled the dates for announcing its verdict — twice.

An earlier date was bumped to Oct. 16, only to be rescheduled for the current date: Nov. 5. Yup, two days before the U.S. midterm elections.

According to Media Matters, the court explained the first delay by saying it might need to hear more witnesses. The excuse for the second delay was a real howler: The court said it was having difficulty choosing between the death penalty and life imprisonment for Saddam.

As if! There’s no way they’ll give him life.

This is way too perfect. The sensationalism of the headline, “Saddam Is Going to Fry,” will be irresistable to the TV newsers. The verdict will be a strong second lead in the coverage of the elections’ final 48 hours. It will accrue as a win for the president and provide an updraft for Republicans as voting begins.

Not coincidentally, the new date puts the verdict midway into the 72 hours when Republicans deploy their new and highly successful Get Out The Vote strategy of “microtargeting” voters. This technique of calling likely fence-sitters with scary messages tailored to their fears — “the Democrats will let gays marry goats, burn the flag and/or take away your guns” — has been credited with giving Republicans their slim winning margins in the last two election cycles.

And here’s one last non-surprise: Your Liberal Media are pretending to be clueless that there could be any Rovian manipulation behind moving the verdict into the election’s news cycle. In fact, the delayed verdicts have barely made it onto the Old Media radar.

Schwarzenegger Leads Angelides, 48% to 30%

Jon Ponder
Even in the Bay Area, the state’s most solidly Democratic stronghold, Schwarzenegger has pulled slightly ahead of his challenger.

California is about to make a huge mistake in reelecting Gov. Schwarzenegger. It’s like watching a train rushing headlong toward a bridge that has collapsed into a ravine:

State Treasurer Phil Angelides has failed to narrow Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s double-digit lead in the contest for governor, and Californians are leaning toward approval of all but one of the $43 billion in bond measures on the state’s Nov. 7 ballot, according to a poll released Wednesday…

In the race for governor, the poll found Schwarzenegger leading Angelides by 48 percent to 30 percent — statistically unchanged from the institute’s survey last month.

Angelides continues to suffer from lackluster support among Democrats despite his recent moves to spur enthusiasm among voters in his own party, according to the poll.

He has pledged to demand the return of California National Guard troops from the war in Iraq. He has hammered Schwarzenegger for supporting President Bush’s reelection in 2004. And he has run a TV ad telling viewers he was inspired to enter politics by the drive to dump another Republican president, Richard Nixon.

Yet the poll found that just 57 percent of Democrats back Angelides. Even in the Bay Area, the state’s most solidly Democratic stronghold, Schwarzenegger has pulled slightly ahead of his challenger.

By contrast, Schwarzenegger held 86 percent of the Republican vote. Independents, a crucial swing group, favored Schwarzenegger over Angelides by 43 percent to 24 percent.

Schwarzenegger Severs Ties with GOP — For Now

Jon Ponder
As soon as Schwarzenegger is ensconced in Sacramento for his first full four-year term, he’ll revert to his old ways: Handing the state’s resources over to its financial elite.

The playbook for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign has been clear from the outset:

  • Ensure that every public appearance is scripted and stage managed in order to prevent the gaffe-prone governor from having to make off-cuff-remarks (therefore only one debate)
  • Use the governor’s access to the national entertainment media to gain free publicity that is unavailable to his opponent, state Treasurer Phil Angelides (thus Schwarzenegger appears on Jay Leno’s show but Leno refuses to give Angelides equal time)
  • Run away from the Republican Party, of which the governor is one of the most popular figureheads (so terse and challenging letters from the governor to President Bush about environmental issues and the like are regularly released to the public)

As the popularity of President Bush and the GOP continues to tank in California, we’re seeing a special emphasis from the Schwarzenegger campaign on the latter point. He’s running as hard and fast away from his party as he can:

At tightly staged events this week in San Diego, Glendale and Oakland, Schwarzenegger has all but severed his Republican ties while playing up the value of bipartisan harmony.

He has also taken pains to widen his appeal beyond white Republican men, his most loyal supporters. At every stop, Schwarzenegger has surrounded himself with African Americans or Latinos and stuck to themes that resonate with Democrats, independents and women: the environment and education.

Hey, using black people as props certainly worked for then-candidate Bush in 2000. At the GOP convention that year, the stage was jammed with brown faces looking out on a sea of white faces on the convention floor. Americans fell for that in 2000, and it appears that Californians are falling for it 2006 as well.

The governor has been off the rightwing media radar but is planning at least one foray:

In what has become a rare nod to a conservative base that he once tended to assiduously, Schwarzenegger plans to appear Friday on “Hannity & Colmes,” a Fox News television show to be taped on the Midway, the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum.

But that is an exception. For months, the governor has kept a distance from his party, a move seen as a strategic necessity in a state where just a little more than a third of registered voters are Republican. He has avoided public events with other GOP candidates and refused to endorse the party’s staunchly conservative U.S. Senate nominee, former state Sen. Dick Mountjoy of Monrovia. And in an interview last week, Schwarzenegger sidestepped the question of how much he cares whether Republicans win other statewide races.

This distancing from his party is especially ironic since Gov. Schwarzenegger’s campaign team is comprised of former Bush White House political operatives. It is also a dodge. Everyone knows that as soon as he is ensconced in Sacramento for his first full four-year term, he’ll revert to his old ways: Handing the state’s resources over to its financial elite.