Florida Megathread

[Dereich]

So George LeMieux might be Scott's pick for VP...

I heard Allen West was also a contender a few months back.

The big thing with West was that he declared he'd be open to being LG when Scott said he wouldn't be a bad choice when directly asked about it and then there was a big outpouring of base support for him. There was never any real move for West from the top.

[Dereich]

Reminder that Rick Scott is a scumbag: http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17952-felon-disenfranchisement-the-new-jim-crow

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Felon disenfranchisement didn't begin under Scott and won't end under his successor. It's a very popular policy.

[Dereich]

We'll see if Democrats can eschew a primary in CD2:

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Good lord, they're relying on Corrine Brown to be their subtle negotiator? I knew the Florida Democrats are in a pretty bad state but I didn't know they were doing THAT poorly.

[Dereich]

We'll see if Democrats can eschew a primary in CD2:

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Good lord, they're relying on Corrine Brown to be their subtle negotiator? I knew the Florida Democrats are in a pretty bad state but I didn't know they were doing THAT poorly.

At least it is not Crazy Hat Lady Frederica Wilson.

Better being known for hats than for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgbBP9Em00A
and this: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2067588/posts


In other news, I had dinner with a bunch of state senators a few nights ago. I was told that the view among the political class up in Tallahassee is that Scott has finally started to turn the corner and things are starting to look better for his reelection.

[Dereich]

The Florida Democratic Party got their first big recruit to run against Jeff Atwater for CFO this weekend, Allie Braswell, who heads the Central Florida Urban League.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/blogs/political-pulse/os-orlandos-allie-braswell-reported-to-run-for-florida-cfo-20130815,0,3121027.post

....Only for him to drop out of the race 4 days later because it was revealed that he has filed for bankruptcy 3 times in more than one state over the last few decades.

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/matt-dixon/2013-08-16/newly-minted-democratic-candidate-cfo-has-filed-bankruptcy

Its good to see that the incompetence of the Florida Democratic Party hasn't changed.

[Dereich]

Well, the Flo democrats seem to become better with their recruits .

I don't see how you could infer that from any recent events. The most recent thing happening with the FL Dems (which I forgot to mention at the time) is their leadership engaging in a mini civil war with their house minority leader getting booted by the caucus for trying to be independent from Tant http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/darryl-rouson-rejected-next-democratic-leader-florida-house

And I wouldn't really call Charlie Crist a Democratic recruit, more like the opposite. Charlie Crist is recruiting the Democratic party in his attempt to get back into the Governor's mansion.

[Dereich]

Well, the Flo democrats seem to become better with their recruits .

I don't see how you could infer that from any recent events.

A solid recruiting job in Pasco (Murphy) and in St. Pete (Kriseman), and assuming good recruits in Pinellas (hopefully Justice, probably Sink) and for gov (Crist).

Murphy managed to win a seat in the State House in an off year special election with the backing of the popular former occupant of that seat. Doesn't say much about the state party. FL-13 is going to be a tight race no matter how strong a candidate the Democrats nominate, and I'd never put it past the FL Dems to lose a winnable race. I'll stick by my statement on Crist, he isn't really a Dem recruit,  they're more of a Crist recruit. Kriseman I don't really know the details of, so I don't know if the Dems are being especially competent there.

[Dereich]

PPP's poll for the House Majority PAC has Graham leading Southerland 44-41.

He was trailing a Generic D 43-47 a few weeks ago.


I'm glad I got my wish though

I wish they tested actual challengers in districts that had them (like Gwen Grahan in FL-02).

Both the floors and ceilings for both parties are ridiculously close to 50% in FL-2. Whoever wins will do so by a point or two. Unless Southerland or Graham eats babies some time over next year polling of the race is going to be useless. Interesting thing: I just saw the first attack ad against Southerland by the house majority PAC. Again though, this race is going to be close no matter what.

Fun thing happened recently: the state Democratic party's website is at FloridaDems.org.  The FL GOP just revealed that they own FloridaDems.com and have of course made it into an anti-Democrat website. I'm still of the opinion that the FL Dems don't have their act together, stuff like this doesn't hurt that opinion.

[Dereich]

Interesting story that's come up recently: one of the big time Florida political commenters, Peter Schorch at SaintPetersBlog, has been accused of pressuring people to buy ads to get good coverage and giving bad coverage to people who refuse. Apparently, they're restarting criminal investigations now after the Tampa Bay Times brought the story up. The story is here:  http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/cash-for-coverage-questions-arise-about-local-political-blogger-peter/2152747

[Dereich]

Acc'd to the Times, Scott has a Lt. Gov. shortlist of 4, including an appointed superintendent of schools and a county commissioner.

I'd put my money on Eslinger or Joyner; it'd be very odd for a South Florida Republican to run without someone from the North to balance out the ticket.

[Dereich]

Rick Scott's chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, lied on his job application. He correctly stated that he had attended the University of Alabama from 86-90 and had a BA in communications. What he "forgot" to mention is that he didn't actually get the degree until 2009 when he went back and finished it. This is probably enough to get him kicked out, which is bad luck for Scott. I don't know if we should read too much into this; I try to stay up with Florida news and didn't hear about this for a few days, but it is bad luck for Scott who may be about to lose his 3rd chief of staff.

http://members.jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/matt-dixon/2013-12-10/adam-hollingsworth-doesnt-list-2009-graduation-date

[Dereich]

Crist has endorsed the medical marijuana initiative

Which should surprise exactly nobody. Charlie Crist's former (maybe still current?) boss and key adviser John Morgan is the one leading the medical marijuana initiative.

[Dereich]

I would call him a corrupt bastard if enough evidence existed for him to at least be investigated by the state, which to my knowledge, he hasn't.

Oh please, this is obvious, even more obvious than Aaron Schock being gay. Why would he have curtailed early voting?
Once again, I won't do my moralist "blablabla, you should be ashamed of yourself for supporting him blabla". I can understand that you prefer to vote for a corrupt bastard than for someone who strongly despises. But please, recognize he's a corrupt bastard, just for intellectual honesty.

You talk about intellectual honesty yet to offer no proof other than your opinion, which you believe is true because he is a "corrupt bastard."

Because he has curtailed early voting, why wouldn't have he done that, if not for targeting minority voters? Why? Answer.

Not him, but it's an easy question. Early voting doesn't raise turnout anyways, so cutting a few days out of it saves a few million dollars without harm and Scott is a big fan of making those weird little cuts that save chump change.

[Dereich]

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http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/gubernatorial/florida-dems-say-scott-campaign-broke-fundraising-law/2170660

Everyone knows Scott is a criminal though, so will this hurt him?

Ignoring the stupid part, do legalistic election law disputes hurt anyone? The number of swing voters who will ever hear about this is miniscule. The amount of those who it sways are right around zero. As for the potential money loss, I'm pretty sure that even if they found the Scott campaign guilty and charged the very maximum they'd still have enough money to completely saturate every Florida market. This isn't going to be some cheap race where $82 million is a huge amount of money. This is Charlie Crist and Rick Scott we're talking about; fundraising is what they do.

[Dereich]

The incumbents are way way out-raising and are out-polling their Democratic challengers. I'm pretty sure Putnam is safe as Ag Commish as he's allowed to have it, CFO Atwater has over a million in his war chest while his opponent is at something like $10,000 raised in total, he's safe too. The AG race is the only potentially interesting one, having two halfway-serious challengers, one being the House minority leader and the other being a former Secretary of the Department of Children and Families. Neither of them have really raised much money or done anything too spectacular though, and with the state's lean helping her I'd say the race is something like likely R.

[Dereich]

In Gainesville I've seen one Scott sign...and that's it. Nothing else for Governor.

[Dereich]

GOP turnout has apparently been stronger than expected in the greater Jacksonville area (Duval, Clay, Nassau, basically all the Northeast) and I've heard the same thing about Pasco. Either Scott is doing well or Democrats wait till late to vote.

[Dereich]

What Scott did to "Checkpoint Charlie" was almost criminal. I'm just happy the irrational haters didn't get what they wanted.

Marijuana fails too.

[Dereich]

So tonight was the first round of the Jacksonville mayor's race and I decided I'd give a bit of a rundown on the whole thing. To start, a normal election will end up about 55/45 in favor of the Republican.

First, the losers:

Independent Omega Allen: Omega Allen formerly ran a small development agency and ran an independent leftist campaign. She had her moments, getting some good digs in on the mayor from the left in the last debate, but otherwise isn't worth much discussion. Atlas would have loved her, as with all leftists without a chance. Ended up with about 2% of the vote.

Republican Bill Bishop: City councilman and moderate favorite. He spent the campaign being too honest about his plans. He admitted he'd raise taxes as part of his plan to dredge the and fix the disastrous city pensions. He supported an earlier tax increase to prevent the firing of police officers, which the mayor opposed. He was seen as winning both of the debates and was endorsed by the Times-Union and pretty much every other local news outlet, but it didn't do him much good. I voted for him. He ended up with about 17% of the vote.

The Finalists:

Democrat Alvin Brown: The incumbent mayor, and winner of the first round. Alvin formerly worked in the Clinton administration under beloved Atlas icon Andrew Cuomo. Brown is a conservative Democrat who was barely elected 4 years ago after having the good luck of making the runoff against Mike Hogan, the candidate of an unholy alliance between the Tea Party and the First Baptist Church. Against this he managed to cobble together a coalition of black Democrats and business oriented moderate Republicans, barely squeaking through to become the city's first black mayor. His record has been mixed, to say the least. He's done some good developing downtown, he's managed to bring in some new businesses, didn't interfere with Shad Khan even though he didn't like him and overall had great success reducing unemployment. However, he's hidden away and dithered whenever controversial issues like the pension plan or human rights ordinance come up. He's also very egotistical, well known for putting his name and face everywhere; for example, the "Jacksonville Jazz Festival" became "Mayor Alvin Brown Presents the Jacksonville Jazz Festival". His inaction and fights over putting his name on things have driven off many of his initial business supporters and made him a sometimes enemy of Shad Khan, owner of the Jaguars and the city's most important benefactor. He also has been in hot water for trying to conduct secret negotiations with the unions over pensions, which resulted in a court order requiring openness. He would never make a controversial decision, fudging the numbers on budgets to reduce the need for unpopular action and leaping through hoops to never raise taxes, firing 150 police officers at one point to do so. He won round one with about 43% of the vote.

Republican Lenny Curry: The state GOP chair who stepped down to run for mayor. He's pretty much as establishment and standard a Republican as you'll get anywhere. It's hard to say too much about him because he's said nothing during the campaign and done nothing that'll hurt him. He's for "coming up with strategic plans" and against anything and everything that Mayor Brown has done in office. He's not a bad guy and by no means is he stupid, but he's shown no sign that he'll act with more backbone. The very least which can be said for him is that he's from the correct wing of the party: he won't campaign against the human rights ordinance or stop downtown development for religious reasons like some of his predecessors did. His connections will probably also lead to more money from Tallahassee. He got 38% in the first round.

Issues:

Human Rights Ordinance: An embarrassment to the city. The City Council was prepared to expand our Human Rights Ordinance to protect gays and lesbians from non-discrimination. Most cities already have these, and the push it this was led by liberals and the business community. Mayor Brown, at the urging of his minister, refused to support it and it narrowly failed in the council. Lenny Curry said he'd vote against this specific version of the ordinance, but is "against discrimination against gays in principle" whatever that means.

Taxes: Both sides promise to never raise taxes ever. Curry attacks Brown for a tax increase a few years ago that Brown vetoed, but was overruled on.

Dredging the port: Everyone want to do it, but nobody (but Bishop) will admit to having a plan on how to pay for it expect by begging Washington and Tallahassee for money.

Law and Order: Curry wants to rehire the 150 fired police officers but doesn't say how to afford them. Mayor Brown just tries to deny that there's been any increase in crime since the firing.

Pensions: This is still the big lurking terror. Business leaders are mad that Brown never fixed it, but he did try. Neither Brown nor Curry have definite plans, but they both say they'll fix it better than the other guy.

There is also a very competitive race for sheriff, where the well-regard incumbent is term limited out. That race will almost definitely be between Democrat Ken Jefferson and one of a few not really distinguishable Republican challengers. No choice for that is especially bad.

[Dereich]

I was bored and I never do long posts. Give me a break.

[Dereich]

Downtown Jacksonville won't dump Corrine, ESPECIALLY for Graham. She's done.

[Dereich]

Downtown Jacksonville won't dump Corrine, ESPECIALLY for Graham. She's done.

That won't be the only part of the district, Tallahassee and Gadsden County will make up a good portion, which is Graham's territory.

Dude just admit the activist decision while getting you a net gain has cost you daddy's little girl, theres a good chance she would have lost reelection anyways

It wasn't an activist decision and Graham would easily defeat Brown, because Brown is a moron. It's not like makes a difference to Republicans anyway, there is no net gain here for them.

Corrine Brown has done an excellent job securing patronage for her district (which I BELIEVE will make up the majority of the new district) or, at very least, has appeared to her constituents to do so. There is little to no chance she'll be dumped for an unproven, white, junior congresswoman whose main claim to fame was being especially appealing to white Southerners, few of whom will be in this new district. I have no doubt she'll have opportunities down the line, but there's no way she beats Corrine in a primary.

[Dereich]

The Broward County Democrats probably need to update their website.