One dubious thing after another in Crist statement

Memo to self: Listen to what they’re saying, and analyze.

This strikes me as a mission for the next six months, right up to election day, Nov. 2. I’ve been trying to do this with Marco Rubio, who sometimes demands of his audience: “Now listen to what I’m saying. Listen!” And then he tells a whopper. As if “Listen to what I’m saying” is anesthesia of the brain and auditory nerves, and no one will challenge his saying, for instance, that the United States is great because it’s the only place on earth where you can write a business plan  on a cocktail napkin and then go out and get wealthy.  What? You can do that lots of places. Probably Communist China is the best place for that trick. Especially if you’re a Communist.

Yesterday Gov. Charlie Crist spoke for less than six minutes announcing his switch to running for US Senate as a former Republican, and if you wade through the platitudes, you’ll find quite a few examples of doubt-provoking statements.

My crude Flip video-editing skills may not be fully up to the challenge of describing on video how it went, so I’m adding some written commentary here so that when you get to the video down below, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

He starts, for instance, by saying his decision to run without a party label says more about the United States and Florida than it does about himself. Seems pretty dubious to me. He’s the one dragging in the polls as a Republican. If it must  point at something other than Charlie Crist, how about pointing at the Republican Party, which is riven by ideology and corruption?

Next clip declares that our political system is broken. Again, it’s really the Republican Party and its divisions that are highlighted by Crist's exit from the GOP. The broken political system is better seen when one looks at the Republicans in the US Senate, the Party of No.

Easy thing would have been to run for governor? Wait a minute! Way back months ago when Mel Martinez followed Sarah Palin in quitting his/her elected office well before time done/job done, there was speculation that Crist would bail out of the governorship because Florida was heading for unemployment like seldom before, and he’d be blamed for that if he ran for re-election as governor. So I don’t think he’d have had an easy run. I think his career is at an end. And the jobless rate is still over 12 percent, as Democrat Kendrick Meek reminds us along with the fact that Crist and Rubio are the political authors of the misdirection in the Florida economy.



Note: the tipoff in the example above is that he starts with the word frankly -- a major clue that the next phrase will be untrue. "Frankly, the easy thing for me would have been to run for re-election as governor."

To continue, Crist talks about his brilliant decisions and declares that he’s stopped off-shore drilling. What? What was it that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico the other day? It doesn’t seem he stopped it, not at all. But it was a pretty good applause line.

Then he says he’s going to be with us forever. Forever! What more can I say?

Sen LeMieux voted with Dems for cloture on jobs bill

Interesting that our stand-in Republican US Senator, George LeMieux, was in the R-crowd that joined Dems in voting for cloture today on the jobs bill.

A Daily Kos post on it: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/2/24/840248/-Flippity-floppeters?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=Twitter

Would this reflect what his alter ego, Charlie Crist, would do in in the Senate? We can think so, since the former governor, Jeb Bush, who's also a former worker for Lehman the failed investment bank, thinks it's unforgivable that Crist wanted jobs for Florida coming from the stimulus bill. Jeb, we understand, only favored Wall Street bailouts, not the Main Street stimulus.

Gosh, what does this say about our Jebbie, the popular governor? And about Marco Rubio, his guy for the Senate?

Memo to Miami Herald: Need story on our losses on Stuyvesant Town

Where’s the Miami Herald on this story? Referring to the fiasco now two years old with the Florida State Board of Administration and the way it lost money – taxpayers’ money that was supposed to be held in close and careful trust for pension funds, hospitals and the like.

This blog has been mad as hell and not standing for it any more for some time with main focus on Jeb Bush and his well-paid gig with Lehman Brothers after he left the governor’s office, whereupon Lehman went belly-up and the Lehman investments Jeb pushed on us became worthless.

There’s another famous episode, however, that’s now maturing to Florida’s detriment, and I don’t see it properly explicated in the Herald. It surfaced in New York early this week when Tishman Speyer caved on the $5.4 billion developments at Stuyvesant Town and Cooper Village. This cost Florida $250 million plus spare change amounting to millions, and you can read about it in the Jacksonville newspaper. But not in the Herald.

Is this a political decision, or is the Herald’s financial investigative staff overwhelmed?

Anyway, we need to have the Herald nag the perpetrators until they lay out their roles in this. And they are Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush. Meanwhile, you can read about it in the Jacksonville paper and in the New York Times today, which is looking at how the Democrat Andrew Cuomo is getting tons of campaign money from real estate interests, including Tishman.

A recent post on this topic can be found at this link. Or look up Jeb Bush on the tags list on the right.

Massachusetts lesson for Florida Dems: Wall Street will be our foe

What was going on in Massachusetts? It was hard to tell from South Florida, so with the hindsight of knowing who won, let’s just look ahead to Florida and November of this year when we are electing a US Senator, and ask ourselves, Who will be behind the Republican candidate? Especially if it’s Marco Rubio.

The answer is in my email today in a jolly call from Club for Growth for a “knockout blow” to “big government,” which is said to be “the issue on everyone’s minds.”

Set aside the fact that big government is not on everyone’s mind when the job is gone or endangered, the mortgage is under water, and the health insurer is waiting to get your last penny and then deny you coverage.

And where does Chris Chocola, speaking for Club for Growth, want to swing and land that knockout blow? In Florida, in the Marco Rubio campaign.

That’s all laid out in his email, and below you’ll find excerpts to prove it. But before that, let’s consider the Club for Growth. Call it Wall Street. Call it Goldman Sachs. A front group.

Read what our friends at Think Progress and Daily Kos lay out on who funds the Club for Growth and who will fund Marco Rubio in Florida. It will be Wall Street, even as the handsome former speaker of the Florida House trots around the state playing to the teabagger crowd, which is deeply suspicious of Wall Street.

This is the irony underlying the Rubio campaign. It’s what our friend FlaDem describes in his Daily Kos post as the lesson from Massachusetts: “ … the Massachusetts race teaches that a Wall Street funded anti-Wall Street politician is a formidable foe.”

Quotes from the Club for Growth email:

It's a new year. Campaigns have begun in earnest.

After a year of liberal tax-and-spend politics, big government is the issue on everyone's minds.

Even in Massachusetts, voters have rejected Barack Obama's out-of-control liberalism, leaving the tax-and-spend Democrat leadership in Congress reeling.

Well, it's time to deal them the knockout blow.

And there's no better place for you and me to focus right now than the Florida U.S. Senate Republican Primary.

There's no doubt about it, this will be the most critical and closely-watched Republican primary in 2010.

The stakes could hardly be higher.

In one corner of the ring stands our endorsed candidate, Marco Rubio.

....

But his opponent -- in the far left corner - stands [sic] Governor Charlie Crist.
...

Polls have been tightening over the past few months, as Marco Rubio has dramatically closed the gap. In fact, according a December Rasmussen Poll, he's now neck and neck with Charlie Crist!

That means this race will likely come down to money. Plain and simple. 

As you may imagine, the email is replete with links to donate money to Rubio. Any questions? Remember, the Club for Growth has been one of the biggest backers of the economic policies that drove the US economy -- and much of the world -- to the brink of destruction. They are no one's friend. And their vision is seriously skewed if they think Charlie Crist is "far left."

More dirty money -- ripoff followed by coverup

This is an unsung scandal of our state government, and though the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times have done spadework to unearth details, the ripoff of the State Board of Administration is not known as widely as it should be.


The Herald is part of the problem. In this instance Alex Sink, the Florida chief financial officer and leading Democratic candidate for governor, is reduced to complaining in a letter to the editor – as if she’s only a reader of the state’s putative flagship newspaper. And in her letter the key details are buried in the 6th paragraph. There she names her likely Republican opponent for governor, Attorney General Bill McCollum, and Gov. Charlie Crist as the ones not taking appropriate action.

Let’s call it by its proper name – they are conspiring in a coverup. Coverup of what? “Lost billions for taxpayers.” Billions. With BBBB. And who did it? This blog repeatedly has named former Gov. Jeb Bush as a leading suspect, since he was a paid consultant for Lehman Brothers after leaving office in 2006, and Lehman investments are among the biggest reasons for the losses.

(This link is to a blog post last Tuesday on the St. Petersburg Times story – also published in the Herald – that occasioned Sink’s letter, and down in the 4th paragraph is a link to an earlier post on the SBA scandal.)

Lehman, you’ll please remember, is an ex-resident of Wall Street, now that the bubble there has burst.

And Crist, well, he was attorney general when some of the shenanigans in the State Board of Administration happened, and thus he would have been one of the three trustees overseeing that board, along with the governor (Bush) and the chief financial officer, then Tom Gallagher, a veteran Republican politician who lost to Crist for the 2006 gubernatorial nomination.

Plenty of reason for Crist and McCollum to want to keep this scandal quiet. Would Crist’s bid for the US Senate have any life left at all if this scandal got its due exposure? Would McCollum’s bid for governor need a wheelchair?

Jeb Bush never has stood still for a question on this now almost two-year-old scandal. Jeb, tell us – How much did Lehman pay you to “consult” on having Florida buy their crap investments? Why should Florida taxpayers not consider that a delayed bribe payment?

But back to 2010. This is a complicated story, yet it should be rising to the top of Alex Sink’s drumbeat of campaign talk in this election year. The voters are fed up with corruption and dirty money in politics, and when they go to vote in November they should know that Republicans were the ones ripping them off in Tallahassee. Time for a clean sweep.

With a grit of the teeth: I browsed over to the St. Pete Times to see whether Sink’s letter also was published there, since the investigative piece originated in the Times. No, but the Times had an editorial  worrying that Sink’s office might have favored one law firm over another because of political donations. That’s understandable. I have worried about the same question. My conclusion is that we must get money out of politics. Check out http://www.fairelectionsnow.org/ for a bill in Congress that would do it.

Daily Kos speculates on Crist turning Democrat

With tongue perhaps in cheek, the mighty Kos blogged yesterday that Charlie Crist might as well switch to the Democratic Party in his quest for a seat in the US Senate.

Almost more interesting to me was the Daily Kos polling on the opinions behind the Republicans who favor the outgoing governor Crist or the former Florida House speaker, Marco Rubio, to be nominee for Senate. Turns out – surprise! – a lot of Rubio’s backers don’t think Barack Obama is a US citizen. That has been a quiet front lately. But the birthers are still lurking around the corner from all our polling places, and Rubio bids to be the one to set them loose.  What a strange state we inhabit. We can be certain that the nation and the world will be watching Florida closely through the 2012 election. We started this in 2000.

ASIDE: My first shot at posting this news of the Kos poll didn’t quite come off. It may be nuts for a blogger to confess this, but I was not even to the state of blogging while wearing pajamas at my computer; I was flat in bed browsing news through Google Reader on my iPhone, and tried to post with an email to the magic Blogger address that makes it all happen. But NOW I’m blogging while wearing pajamas at my computer …

For the record, all that was posted on the first attempt was this URL which sort of takes one on a loop to Google Reader and not much further into knowledge of the wider world.

http://www.google.com/reader/i/#stream/user%2F14525197483831170873%2Fstate%2Fcom.google%2Freading-list

Miami Beach election time brings out blogger's doubts

We’re in the middle of an election on Miami Beach right now -- runoff time over two seats on the city commission.  In the first round, on general election day Nov. 3, Mayor Matti Bower was re-elected easily, as was Group 1 Commissioner Jerry Libbin. In runoffs are Group 2 candidates Jorge Exposito and Maria Mayer and Group 3 candidates Michael Gongora and Gabrielle Redfern. Runoff day will be Nov. 17.  Those, like me, who registered for absentee ballots should get them in the mail soon.

Your blogger’s only preference is in Group 3, where I know Gabrielle Redfern from Democratic Party meetings, and both of us are on the county Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. She’s a smart and effective advocate for interests of the ordinary folk. This is a severely under-represented group that needs someone like Redfern, with her heart in the right place and wide-ranging experience in public affairs.

The point of this post, however, is more to ask why anyone wants this sort of work. I’m drawing on two fresh sources here, so I’m calling this a rounded look at city government on Miami Beach.

The sources, and their grim views of the Beach, are:

·         Gerald Posner’s new book “Miami Babylon,” a chronicle starting in 1980 into crime, drugs, corruption and elections mostly on Miami Beach, though the mainland is a big, bad player too.

·         Victor Diaz, now leaving office after a year as an appointed Miami Beach city commissioner for Group 3 until the current election decides a successor to Richard Steinberg, who was elected in 2008 to the state House of Representatives. Diaz spoke to the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club on Oct. 27 and implied that money was too big a factor in how city commissioners vote. TaDA! Is that the definition of corruption, or what?

I have only my sketchy notes of Diaz’s talk, and he didn’t name names, so he leaves more of an impression than an indictment. Leave that to Posner’s book.

Before going further, some Miami Beach numbers. Population about 90,000. Registered voters 46,178, of whom only 7,374 voted on Nov. 3. That’s a pitiful turnout of 16%. Still, 16% is important. It’s the share of health care in our national economy, and we know what a big deal that is. Candidates don’t have to send their expensive brochures to every registered voter – only to the ones who always vote.

Last time we had municipal elections, in 2007, the candidates together spent $130.55 per vote cast. A shocking big number, it comes from $1,301,763 reported spent by the candidates, and 9,871 voters.

Our nonpartisan municipal elections are always held in the odd-numbered years so no national or state issues draw out large crowds of voters. Why’s that?

Diaz complained that the commission indulges in “prepackaged” discussion, and he suspected that too many votes were cast at the behest of a lobbyist who had been the commissioner’s campaign consultant.

In the Q-A after Diaz’s talk, I asked about the role of money. He agreed with my drift that money was a big part of our problem and suggested we need a citizens’ PAC for good government and a grass-roots movement to transform city government.

 One of the most pernicious impacts of political money came from the so-called electioneering campaign organizations that send objectionable accusations to voters, Diaz said. The organizations’ filings aren’t due until after the election, so interest vanishes by the time someone could dig out who was behind the vile charges. After last week’s voting, dismissed candidate Sherry Roberts sent out an email saying she couldn’t endorse either of the two who finished ahead of her in Group 2, Jorge Exposito and Maria Mayer, because of such mailers with dubious sourcing and allegations. I’m hereby nominating Sherry Roberts for a big role in that good-government PAC suggested by Diaz.

Diaz said candidates have to be pressed on who’s behind these groups, usually described as shadowy in the media.

Now to Posner’s book, “Miami Babylon,  Crime, Wealth, and Power – a Dispatch from the Beach.” People packed into the furniture store behind Books and Books on Lincoln Road for the author’s talk and signing. In the crowd were a lot of Beach politicians including Mayor Matti Bower and ex-convict former Mayor Alex Daoud – my notes say Posner called him “charismatic but corrupt.”  Daoud got a speaking role in the Q-and-A portion, declaring to Posner, “I don’t give a damn about the criticism. I’ll throw a party for you anytime.”

Some had promised to throw parties for Posner but backed out when they read the book. Posner didn’t seem to think the book was too tough, saying, “Nobody’s going to jail because of this book, and that’s all right.”

But, Posner said, Daoud’s book, “Sins of South Beach,” published in 2006 after he finished his jail time, should have resulted in more prosecutions, because Daoud fingered former Mayor Harold Rosen as having paid bribes to Daoud.

In Posner’s book he puts it this way: “The most surprising thing about Daoud’s disclosure is that it caused no fallout at all. Not a single television or radio news program mentioned it. The Miami Herald assigned a reporter and photographer to interview Daoud and then killed the story.”

The excuse could be that Daoud’s book gives off an aura of unreliability. He prints page after page of old conversations in direct quotes. I never was able to finish the book, though paging through it now I see I missed the hot spots where he gets graphic about the sexual aspect of corruption.

Here are links to two Miami Herald stories on Posner’s book, one before the author’s talk, and the other reporting on that talk.  Note that neither one mentions Posner’s explicit criticism of the city’s flagship newspaper and its role in condoning some corrupt behavior. It must be said on behalf of the Herald that it does some important investigative work exposing corruption, though most of that involves Miami. And Posner used the Herald as source for a lot of his material.

 Miami Beach, Posner speculated, may escape closer attention because its happenings are treated like “neighborhood” stories for the twice-weekly Neighbors section of the Herald. Strange, considering that much of the outside world thinks Miami Beach IS Miami.

One of the good guys of Posner’s book is Frank Del Vecchio, who retired to Miami Beach with wide experience in municipal affairs in Boston and Washington DC and then became the most prominent watchdog of Miami Beach government. Del  Veccio finds it to be part of a badly flawed system in Miami-Dade County. Posner quotes him saying “public/private partnerships in Miami Dade are totally crooked. It is the most corrupt government, at almost every planning and implementation stage, I ever encountered.”

That’s a powerful criticism. And it’s in the air we breathe, apparently. “In Miami, there is no agency tradition, no fear of oversight by another body, and no judicial system that has real peer review standards,” Posner quotes Del Vecchio saying. “Instead, the dominant political constituency, Cuban, is bound by loyalty, not ethics. Even the corrupt politicians up north knew they had to deliver to the communities they served, or they would be out of office. Here, the political interests are not to serve the public good. It’s just all short-term thinking to help themselves. In Miami, the ingrained politicians have more control than the old ward bosses of the Northeast because here they control the banks and own the land. There are no checks and balances.”

One can only wish the best to any honest person who dares run against this environment.

And let’s not forget we’re part of Florida, where Ponzi schemers like Scott Rothstein are big political donors.  Check out the Herald’s latest story on him, In which Gov. Charlie Crist is bold enough to joke that something is going to cost Rothstein “another $100,000.” Brazen is the word for it.

PS: For more on Posner's appearance at Books and Books, go to Youtube.com and search for Miami Babylon. Someone put up a three-part video on the event.

Here's my little video on it:

Crist wants grand jury to probe state corruption

I've been nagging about this for some time now, so I've got to say positive things about the governor. Darn, though, I never expected him to do the right thing.

Anyway, like the Democrats in the state legislature, there are many good ideas out there on how to stamp down on corruption. I don't think Charlie Crist helps by having a fundraiser in Arizona with a convicted (later pardoned) corrupt politician, but if a grand jury gets right to work it may lead to cleaner elections next year.

Here is a statement issued by the Democratic leader in the state House:

TALLAHASSEE -- Florida House Democratic Leader Franklin Sands (D-Weston) issued the following statement in response to Governor Charlie Crist’s call for a statewide grand jury on corruption by public officials.

“I am encouraged by Governor Crist’s expression of concern about the conduct of some public officials throughout Florida, and I endorse his call for a statewide grand jury to investigate criminal activities among those who serve in government.

“I urge the governor and my colleagues in the Legislature to move expeditiously and approve during the 2010 legislative session measures to prevent wrongdoing by public officials and restore the public’s confidence in their government.

“Various recommendations have already been proposed. One worthy idea has been offered by state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald (D-Sarasota) and state Sen. Dan Gelber (D-Miami Beach) to amend the state constitution to reform the Legislature’s appropriations process.

“The proposal these Democratic state lawmakers have offered would require all budget deliberations be done in public and with sufficient advance notice so that the people and the press can witness how the budget is written and what it includes. In addition, the amendment would require that the state’s spending plan is written in plain language to be understandable to the average citizen. It would also require three-fourths of the House or Senate to approve amendments filed in the last five days of a session, in an attempt to end the temptation for legislators to load legislation with favors for special interests and political donors.”

FL-Sen: Kos keeps backing Rubio's chances against Crist

All I can say is, read it and ponder. This is the big guy among us bloggers, Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, judging that Marco Rubio is going to beat Charlie Crist to be the Republican nominee for US Senate next year. Is it just the similarity of their first names? Both young guys with Latino origins?

I'm assuming Markos wouldn't vote for Rubio, if he were a Floridian. But just to be sure I'm posting a comment to link my recent post on Rubio's appearance  in Key Largo.

Do Republican Senate hopefuls think they're immune to suspicion?

Thanks to the Miami Herald's Naked Politics blog for pointing out how the two big Republicans running for US Senate don't mind tainted money. Gov. Charlie Crist is going to raise money with a convicted fraudster in Arizona (later pardoned) and Marco Rubio launched his campaign with a bash hosted by the Broward ophthalmologist at the center of a federal corruption indictment.

Business as usual. The word is brazen.

Corruption probe in Florida state government looks big

This has been growing for a couple days now. This Tallahassee story in the Miami Herald and, no doubt, the St. Pete Times too, seems to touch the governor's office and the state legislature.

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist may be in the clear. Former Democratic Gov. Bob Graham seems to be in the maybe clear category too.

It's a federal probe, and when we get a better handle on how big it is, we can ask why our state law enforcement officials, namely former Attorney General Charlie Crist and current Attorney General Bill McCollum (now running for governor in the 2010 election), didn't find out about what their close colleagues were doing.

Meanwhile, just run your cursor around the "Similar Stories" box in the Herald site, and you'll see a quick tutorial on the uses of lobbyist money in dubious fashion in our state capital. It's a nice feature -- a summary of the earlier story pops up without your having to click on it. Thanks, Miami Herald.

A Rachel Maddow show to be watched

The Rachel Maddow show is simply great. This entire show is worth watching. Take notes! Much to learn here. This may be talked about in my presentation Saturday Oct. 10 at the Florida Democratic Party Conference in Orlando.

A personal note here: One segment features a friend and colleague from my AP days, Michael Precker. He's now an escapee from the world of journalism and works in PR for The Lodge, a"gentlemen's club" in Dallas that Newt Gingrich's political committee honored with an entrepreneurial award -- and then withdrew it. This saga describes the crude fundraising that stains our politics. In fact, much of this Rachel Maddow show rips into the weak leadership, truth-twisting and hypocrisy that cast so much of our national leadership in a poor light.

There's also this writeup on a Dallas blog with more background on The Lodge segment.

UPDATE: This line of work gets around -- the "gentlemen's club." I'm just picking up from the Miami Herald's Naked Politics blog that one of Gov. Charlie Crist's new appointments to the Public Service Commission is a part owner of a bar where, according to the photo on Naked Politics, young women in skimpy attire hang from a pole. The all-popular governor defends the appointment to the commission that rules on utility rates by saying the guy is a small businessman who will know what his electric bill is. Turns out the guy's resume is faulty, as well. And is it good to have a law enforcement person be running bars?

One more Democrat for US Senate? Stay tuned

One more Miamian may be about to enter the race for the Democratic nomination for US Senate: Maurice Ferre, former mayor of Miami. He's in the Orlando Sentinel yesterday and in the Miami Herald's Naked Politics blog today. The latter says he will announce next Wednesday.

Other prominent Democrats in the race are Congressman Kendrick Meek of Miami and former Mayor Kevin Burns of North Miami. On the Republican side are Gov. Charlie Crist and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio. This is the seat given up by the vanishing Mel Martinez. The primary is next August, election in November 2010.

UPDATE: There's a more complete story in the Friday Miami Herald.

Dem Blogger videos Republican Senate hopeful

In this piece your blogging videographer, or your videoing blogger, takes a step into Republican territory. Marco Rubio is the subject. He’s the former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who’s vying with Gov. Charlie Crist to be the Republican candidate for US Senate in the 2010 election. Rubio is raking in about a tenth of Crist’s money, according to the Sept. 20 workup in the Miami Herald that described how Crist spends most of his time (on our dime, fellow taxpayers, but that’s politics, ain’t it) dialing for dollars or squeezing official events between his appearances at fundraisers.

Rubio’s counterpart of that latter activity – the fundraiser – is how I found myself in the same room with him for an hour Saturday evening, at my sailing club in Key Largo. One of the founding members is a leading local Republican, Ken Sorensen, who hosted a fundraiser for 50-60 people. I’ve had many a fine political argument at the sailing club bar with Sorensen, who is a former state representative and, then when termed-out, an assistant to Speaker Marco Rubio. Our last argument was about ACORN, and so it goes.

Speaking of ACORN, I was on the Herald website the other day and hit the editorial asserting that ACORN “must prove it’s squeaky clean” and be purged from top to bottom. In the Comments section I veered decidedly away from everyone who thought ACORN was below Lucifer. My comment suggested applying the same standard to the Republican Party, which even if confined to Jack Abramoff and his co-conspirators must have more people in jail than ACORN. Not to forget John “Torture Memo” Yoo, who’s got a column on the Herald op-ed page when he ought to be facing trial for war crimes. Yes, let’s do a top-to-bottom cleanup on the Republicans, and then turn to the small potatoes at ACORN.

Rubio, you’ll see in the following clip, took notice of my Flip camcorder and gave me a supporting role as citizen journalist sort of like the heroic “college students” who tipped us all off to the purportedly bad apples in an ACORN office. Well, Media Matters checked out some of that story and learned that the “college students” were Republican activists. Plus, the ACORN lady who sounded like Lizzy Borden with a propensity for killing her husband was just leading on the strange couple invading her office. The police say all her ex-husbands are alive and well. Anyway, that’s the poor backgrounding and unethical investigators you get from a far-right world where the gospel comes from Fox and Beck and no questions are asked.

You’ll hear Rubio, like everyone on his side, crow over how CBS and other media didn’t get this (over-hyped) story. Like George W. Bush, he’s probably mad that the US attorneys couldn’t find valid charges against ACORN, either. Well, there is this thing about ethics of prosecutions and of reporting, wherein you don’t start off by lying about who you are, like the “college students.” There is a place for hidden cameras and underground investigations, no doubt, but if Rubio’s taste prevails, “citizen journalism” will be the Wild Wild West.

As Rubio asks us to “listen closely,” I think I heard him saying that ACORN was “a front for political activists.” What’s that, some new offense? Maybe the “college kids” are “a front for political activists,” and we’ve got tit for tat here. Big deal. Readers are referred to the section above where I urge attention to war crimes first, small potatoes later.

The Atlantic, in its fresh October issue, has a rundown on rise of internet reporting with a close examination of how partisan politics is taking over from traditional media, and standards often suffer:

With journalists being laid off in droves, savvy political operatives have stepped eagerly into the breach. What’s most troubling is not that TV-news producers mistake their work for journalism, which is bad enough, but that young people drawn to journalism increasingly see no distinction between disinterested reporting and hit-jobbery.

In the next clip Rubio takes on Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, against whom he’s not running, and Gov. Crist, his main opponent, and says he doesn’t know what they stand for. I thought I’d find something on Bill Nelson’s campaign website or official website to contradict Rubio, but something must be under construction. Well, Nelson doesn’t have to run until 2012, so he has an excuse. And there is plenty of information, though no platform in sight.

Next he’s talking about health care legislation (my question, he didn’t mention it in his stump speech, nor environment/energy/education except in the most sketchy way), and he makes a pretty wild statement about health care in the rest of the world, making it sound as if no country ever has had a good public health system. It may be that he’s defining it so narrowly (he’s a lawyer, after all) that it would have to be a single-payer system that didn’t have the tiniest smidgeon of rationing of care to meet his standard. Well, great, but we’re here in the real world where tons of countries get better results with lower expenditures than ours. And our care is rationed all the time by insurance companies that get rich by denying care.

In the following clip I can agree with his drift on malpractice, especially where he says there’s an overabundance of lawyers.

Finally, is it a waste of time to consider Rubio when Crist is raising money by the ton? If the primary were in a month or two it would be easy to dismiss the young (38) Rubio as someone polishing his resume to run against Bill Nelson two years later. But the primary is almost a year away, and Crist keeps getting skunked in Republican straw polls. What’s going on? A lot could happen.

Check out this story on Fine Print in which Rubio is itching to get into a debate with Crist. Could be interesting.

Meanwhile, our side's main contenders are Kendrick Meek, the congressman from Miami, and North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns.

For the record, the seat was held by one-termer Mel Martinez, who left for no good reason. Gov. Crist could have appointed himself to take the seat but instead named his sometime campaign manager George LeMieux, who's trying to live down the label of crony. So far has the US Senate fallen, when the Constitution, in the 17th Amendment, clearly prefers election rather than appointment to fill a vacancy. Now who's the strict constructionist? Your faithful blogger.

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Crist vulnerable? Here comes Kendrick Meek

His 43rd birthday, according to Wikipedia, was on Sept. 6, but no matter, Kendrick Meek was still partying Sunday afternoon with a low-threshold fundraiser in Coral Gables. The U.S. Representative from District 17 in Miami-Dade, who’s running for US Senate in 2010, only wanted $20.10 from attendees, and there was a nice crowd of over 100 at the Biltmore Hotel to meet the candidate and donate.

The Sunday Miami Herald enticed your blogger out for his third time around with Senate candidate Meek. Interesting story by Adam Smith of the St. Pete Times pointing out the feet of clay worn with the empty suit of Charlie Crist, the supposedly leading Republican contender for the US Senate.

Charlie Crist could be vulnerable in race for U.S. Senate - South Florida - MiamiHerald.com

The story covers the usual ground with Crist -- that he's popular (despite his record) and that he runs for one office after another (despite not finishing the job). But then it seems that Adam Smith and a lot of Republicans are catching on that Crist, for all his money, is not a slam-dunk for the Republican nomination.

My favorite quote from the article:

But talk to veteran Republican activists across Florida, from local organizers to elite operatives to big-money bundlers, and there's a sense Crist could be in trouble. Probably not, but just maybe.

Meek was introduced at the fundraiser by Ana Navarro, who described herself as the "token Republican" on the Meek campaign. She declared forcefully that Crist will be beaten. I guess she was saying that Meek will beat Crist next year, though Crist's more immediate challenge comes from Marco Rubio, the former speaker of the Florida House, who's well off to the right of Crist and contending for the Republican nomination.

This is what raised my morale -- the prospect of a nasty battle between Crist and Rubio. Crist is the governor who has backed out of the trials of managing Florida to run for the US Senate, and has already fouled the nest by appointing his crony George LeMieux to complete the Senate term so ignominiously uncompleted by Mel Martinez. What a bunch of quitters! And the other main Republican contender, Rubio, will throw red ideological meat to the Republican base and alienate them from Crist. We Democrats will look like the soul of reason in comparison by the time people start voting in 2010.

So it was a pleasure to have a piece of birthday cake and dream of one more Democrat in the US Senate after the next election. And not a Blue Dog.

For the record, I should point out that the Florida Division of Elections has six active Democratic candidates for the US Senate and nine Republicans, not to forget four independents. Also, there are seven Democrats registered as candidates to succeed Meek in his reliably Democratic Miami District 17. So we have our own chances to dissolve into nasty primary fights. Let us hope that we got infighting out of our system with the Republican-plotted mess around the early presidential primary date in 2008.

UPDATE: And here's Politico's wrapup of how Crist is in trouble from both sides now. Thanks to the DSCC for pointing this out to me.

Joe Garcia for Congress? A dream of the past, but Mel Martinez may have made it possible again

We're hearing a Republican rumor that Gov. Charlie Crist may appoint US Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart to the US Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez before his time is up. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, not known as senatorial material among reasonable people, would be a caretaker rather than someone to bother Crist's own ambition to become senator, according to this rumor.

UPDATE: Diaz-Balart took himself out of consideration late Monday. Here's a link to the Miami Herald story on it. Since this is in flux, I'll let the rest of this post stand for at least a while. Who knows what will bubble up next? END UPDATE.

Then Lincoln's brother Mario Diaz-Balart, currently representing District 25 in the US House, would move to Lincoln's more strongly Republican District 21 and save his own hide from defeat by a Democrat in the 2010 election. Lincoln would cease seeking federal office, and the bothersome Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House who's contending for the US Senate nomination against Charlie Crist, would run for the US House instead. So goes this convoluted reddish rumor.

Where's Joe Garcia in this? He won't stand for it. Gonna stick his strong Democratic candidacy into these machinations somewhere if the Republicans continue along these lines. This corner speculates that Garcia, with impeccable Cuban American credentials from his years as executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, would run again in District 25, where he ran strongly against Mario Diaz-Balart in 2008, losing only 52-48. The district's Democratic Party numbers have constantly grown since then and Mario faces the end in 2010 -- especially if Joe Garcia is the Democratic candidate.

In the past few months it appeared that Garcia was bowing out of any run for federal office as he was nominated by President Obama to be director of the office of minority economic impact in the Department of Energy. He still needs US Senate confirmation for that post but has been approved at the committee level. Interestingly, Sen. Mel Martinez gave an introductory speech for Garcia at the hearing of the Energy Committee, praising Garcia's past work on refugee resettlement and on the Florida Public Service Commission.

One question that arises is why the great state of Florida should have a mere caretaker senator like Lincoln Diaz-Balart for the next year and a half of crucial legislation on health care, energy and environment, immigration, financial reform and other burning issues left from the George Bush era of maladministration. Which is why none of this may arise -- but anyway, then why is the Republican rumor machine running with this?

For the uninitiated, these two congressional districts cover the western reaches of Miami-Dade County and over the Everglades to part of Collier County and a bit of Broward, too. It's a part of our world that deserves better representation than it has had from the Diaz-Balart brothers. For instance, let's get real about saving the Everglades.

Follow the link for the Miami Herald's take on some of this -- especially Florida's loss of punch if a caretaker is in the Senate. The Herald and most everyone else neglect the fact that the 17th amendment to the US Constitution says there should be an election to fill a Senate vacancy, and an appointment is given second place. If only our elections weren't so cumbersome and expensive.

Mel Martinez: Yes to Sotomayor

Braver than Empty Suit Charlie (see the preceding post) is the man he's vying to replace, Sen. Mel Martinez, who's among the Republicans declaring he'll vote to confirm Sotomayor.

Why is this? Could it be the presence in the Republican race of way-far-right Marco Rubio that makes us increasingly aware that Charlie Crist will never make "Profiles in Courage"? Thanks, Marco.

Here's another link to Martinez's decision -- his own statement.

"Empty suit" Charlie Crist gets national attention

I think this ad from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee would be more effective if it pointed out that Crist is chicken to say anything about Sonia Sotomayor, but anyway, here it is.

Dave Aronberg announces for attorney general

Now we have one Democratic state senator announcing for attorney general and another saying he’ll announce in a few days. So, careful readers, that stuff from a few days ago about avoiding primaries and being all united as a happy family – no longer in effect. That car’s not in gear. That idea is inoperative, to borrow a 35-year-old usage made famous in the doomed administration of Richard Nixon.

We’re gonna be Democrats. Will we have slugfests like that between the 2006 candidates for governor, Jim Davis and Rod Smith? That will be up to Sen. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres (District 27), who announced on Thursday, and Sen. Dan Gelber of Miami Beach (District 35), who said in an email, “I expect to be making my own announcement of my intentions within a few days.”

Let us fervently wish that they don’t spend all their money and venom on each other for the primary to be held in August 2010, and that the winner will be in good shape to defeat a Republican in November next year.

UPDATE: Both would have to resign their Senate seats to run for attorney general, under Florida's so-called "resign to run" law, text at this link. The state law does not apply to the federal office that Gelber sought, the US Senate.

Meanwhile, there’s confirmation that Democratic U.S. Rep Corrine Brown of Jacksonville (FL-3) is considering a run for the U.S. Senate nomination. In that race, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami (FL-17) has a strong start, with North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns saying he likes primaries. Gelber said last weekend he was stepping back from his declared run for the nomination for senator to avoid the chance of a divisive primary.

Alex Sink, now the state chief financial officer, is the mainstream announced candidate for the governorship that Charlie Crist will not run again for, instead running for the U.S. Senate nomination against Marco Rubio, former speaker of the state House of Representatives.

If you think this story is getting cluttered with political names, be glad I’m not talking about those announced Democrats for Kendrick Meek’s seat. They number six already. You may click on this link to the Florida Division of Elections list of who is running for everything. Note that Charlie Crist also has six announced Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate nomination.
This looks like a good two years for political consultants. Something to think about for those whose jobs have gone south.

Here’s the text of Gelber’s email.

“A few days ago I receded from the U.S. Senate race in order to avoid the circular firing squad that has characterized too many past Democratic efforts. My hope was that with the opening up of every cabinet office (for the first time in 140 years) that Democratic hopefuls – like me -- would take a step back to give all of us time to reach a thoughtful judgment on how best to unify our party in a year when real change is finally within reach. In fact, over the last few weeks many of the potential candidates had been in dialogue with each other and with others hoping to avoid the type of divisions that damage our ability to present a winning slate in November. I am grateful to have heard that so many of you share my concern and were also hopeful that our party could break free of its past missteps. This afternoon my friend Dave Aronberg let me know that he was not waiting any longer and announced his candidacy for Attorney General. While I would have preferred a different timeline, I expect to be making my own announcement of my intentions within a few days. While part of me worries that this is déjà vu all over again, I am still optimistic that ultimately we will be able to deliver the change Floridians so desperately need.”

And here’s a link to Aronberg’s campaign site, which was under construction a few days ago but now is well populated with content. He plans to talk a lot about consumer protection in his campaign.

Footnote: Nixon was the first president I covered in my years with Associated Press. Does that make me a big-deal White House correspondent? No, my first AP job was in Philadelphia, and Nixon came there (probably 1971) to give a speech on education; the AP traveling White House staffer was generous and let me write the second-cycle story on the speech.

Meek/Burns/Gelber US Senate politics at JJ meeting

Dan Gelber is stepping back. Kevin Burns is not. Kendrick Meek is confident of the Democratic nomination to run against whomever the Republicans put up for the US Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez.

UPDATE: Just learning at midnight Monday about a new entry in the US Senate race: Corrine Brown, U.S. Rep. from Jacksonville (FL-3) says she's considering a race for this seat.
ALSO: The Gelber campaign used my video of Gelber (see below) in a message to people in the Gelber Facebook group. Cool to be linked. It's also on the Broward New Times blog, where you also can see a snip on Corrine Brown.

That’s a bunch of names, and even more will enter the picture. Aside from the jockeying personalities and ambitions, the thing that stands out is a drive by many Florida Democrats to avoid divisive primaries in the 2010 elections – midterms in the presidential cycle but the year to elect the governor and the three other state cabinet officers. No incumbents seek re-election for the first time in over 130 years. Democrats are ambitious to grab all four so-called statewide offices – they only hold one now – and elect a Democrat to the US Senate.

This would be a tremendous state coup for Democrats on the heels of taking Florida’s 27 electoral votes for Barack Obama last November. But it goes against the typical history of midterm losses by the president’s party, and may not be possible anyhow unless the national economy brightens and makes voters more happy with Democrats. The Republicans, after all, also are trying to avoid tough primaries, though Marco Rubio, the deeply conservative former State House speaker, shows no sign of leaving the Senate field to Gov. Charlie Crist, the empty suit.

What do I know about the Republicans, anyway?

Here’s the way this played out among Democrats in public Saturday at the day of training and campaigning that was part of the Florida Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day in the luxe venue of the newly renovated Fontainebleau Hotel on Miami Beach.

Dan Gelber, 48, my state senator (District 35), said he had walked a few hundred yards to the meeting from his Miami Beach home. Finding coffee at the GLBT Caucus room, he told this blogger he was likely to step back from the US Senate race and was talking to people about running for state attorney general. He’s a former federal prosecutor, one highlight in a busy resume of politics and public service, but his ambition in this direction runs up against another rising Democrat, state Sen. Dave Aronberg (FL-27), 38, who’s perhaps even more in need of a bigger job than Gelber. Gelber is early in his first state Senate term, while Aronberg is in his second and last. Term limits, Ta DA!

Some say Florida Democrats don’t have a deep bench of candidates. Gelber and Aronberg are evidence for the other view: that talent is abundant. Unfortunately, attorney general is a natural office for each of them.

Now I’ve mixed the race for state attorney general in with the US Senate. Let’s go back to the senatorial possibilities.

The hapless Mel Martinez announced last year, after being cashiered as head of the Republican Party, that he wouldn’t run for re-election to US Senate. The Democratic scramble started back in December when Gelber said he was thinking of the Senate. A month later Meek, 42, in his fourth term in the US House (FL-17), made the first official step into the race, and Gelber officially announced for US Senate soon thereafter. In February Kevin Burns, mayor of North Miami, launched his bid. This made the Democratic race an entirely Miami-Dade County affair, though the three are a diverse set, Meek being African-American, Gelber Jewish, and Burns gay, in a 26-year relationship and having an adopted, charming daughter. Hey, we’re Democrats. So what if it’s Florida and some parts of the state are still in the Deep South. I can’t help but think … Anyway. Get over it.

All three showed up at the Netroots Coalition training session Saturday morning and spoke briefly, setting wheels in motion. Here are video links to clips of their talks. Text summaries soon thereafter.

Key words from Gelber:

• “Every time we get involved with divisive primaries, we lose.”
• In recent election cycles, “there’s really only been one (Democratic) candidate who’s won, Alex Sink. Guess what – she didn’t have a primary. … I’m in this US Senate race. But I will likely be taking sort of a step back in this race….”
• “I do think this cycle is going to be (about) how disciplined we are going to be as Democrats. Whether we can put together a group that delivers change, really changes the face of our state.”

Kevin Burns was the only enthusiastic proponent of primaries. “I love primaries,” he told the Netroots crowd, while cautioning that a primary should be “responsible.” He contrasted a good primary with the Republicans’ usual tactic of special interests anointing someone to be the nominee.

That doesn’t make Burns a front-runner, however. Meek seems to have that position. But it’s a long time before the primary in August next year.

Gelber and others talked about a 2010 slate – the US Senate, plus the state leadership offices of governor, attorney general, chief financial officer and commissioner of agriculture and consumer affairs. (The lieutenant governor is elected as a team with the governor.)

In the evening, at the banquet before over 1,000 people, Gelber made it more official, saying in his podium speech, “I’m going to step back from my US Senate bid and consider other seats in the (state) cabinet.”

This won the best ovation of the evening. There was prolonged applause and many rose to their feet. Neither Alex Sink, the gubernatorial nominee, nor keynoter Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia and head of the DNC, got prolonged applause. After Kendrick Meek spoke and didn’t acknowledge that Gelber had, in effect, withdrawn (What does “step back” mean, anyway?), Bob Graham, the wise old Florida Democrat, with vast experience as governor and prominent US senator, seemed to depart from his text to thank Gelber, and praised his “courageous, unifying and patriotic statement.”

Now came Alex Sink to the podium after Graham’s introduction. Unchallenged for the Democratic nomination for governor, she gave a speech rich in platitudes until she got to her growing up on a farm. The chatty audience finally hushed and seemed enthralled by her description of how she learned self-reliance and a “love of numbers” from helping her father with the farm accounts. She wrote the checks, and it seemed that soon she was head of the Bank of America in Florida, and now on the threshold of the governor’s office.

She’s facing Bill McCollum, whose distinguishing feature is having run for office a ton of times without seeming to become especially smart or effective. Now he’s the state attorney general, term-limited, so he’s up or out of office.

On Sunday morning Gelber sent an email to supporters announcing again that he’s “stepping back” from the US Senate race, and that he’d been talking with Bob Graham, Alex Sink and US Sen. Bill Nelson about a “slate of candidates” for 2010.

The text of his email:

As you may know I have decided to step back from my U.S. Senate bid. I wanted to let you know the reasons.

When Governor Crist announced he would be a candidate for US Senate, he created a domino effect that opened up every seat on the cabinet. At a time when our state is facing its greatest challenges, ironically, we have our greatest uncertainty and dislocation. But I believe this is also an opportunity – the chance to set a new course that avoids the mistakes of the past and tracks a better future for our families.

It makes little sense -- when we do face the prospect of real change in Florida -- for me to participate in a potentially divisive primary for U.S. Senate that will only serve to diminish our chances against a very formidable and well-known Republican nominee.

I also believe that we have a historic opportunity here in Florida to reshape the political landscape and more importantly, bring fundamental change to Tallahassee. I have had a number of conversations with Senators Graham and Nelson, and CFO Alex Sink, about how we can best unify our party and move forward with a slate of candidates that can communicate our vision for a better Florida, and I look forward to continuing these discussions. I would like to hear your thoughts as you have been a good supporter and friend, and I value your opinion. You can reach me at dan@dangelber.com.

Tim Kaine, in his keynote speech, promised to pay a lot of attention to Florida campaigns and said his DNC will “invest” in our 2010 Senate race. Kaine waxed philosophical in describing how hard it was to know when one’s political “moment” was in bloom and when it was past. “We’ll be measured by what we do in this moment ... You don’t know how long a moment will last … We’ve got to do as much as we can.”

A few more words on that slate for the state offices. Who might be in the other state cabinet slots? One delightful surprise was to learn that Annette Taddeo is considering a run to succeed Alex Sink as chief financial officer. Taddeo ran a strong campaign for US House District 18 (my district) but lost to the entrenched Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in 2008. Taddeo is a successful businesswoman in her own right and would be a credible occupant of the CFO portfolio.

She, too, appeared at the Netroots session and spoke after Gelber, Aronberg and Burns had left.

“This was not my idea,” she said of the CFO draft, but went on, “I am considering it. I am talking to people ... it’s a very difficult decision. I just went through a very grueling campaign.”

She said she’d never run again without party backing, as she did in the ’08 congressional campaign. This was something I saw from medium close-up, and while it was tough on her, it made me and many others admire her grit as much as her intelligence, talent and charm.

So, check it out, the website to draft Annette Taddeo for CFO.

And here’s a link to the Miami Herald’s story, which didn’t have any reporting from the Netroots meeting.

A link to an earlier post here on this topic.