FL-25: Dirty tricks will out in dirty campaign against Joe Garcia

This story started last week while I was out of town (Las Vegas, baby) and oblivious to this chapter in the book of dirty tricks that the Republican slime machine is using against Joe Garcia. Now it looks like it's blowing up in the face of Republican candidate David Rivera, with a pertinent ricochet over to the Marco Rubio campaign house. You see -- and this gets really complicated -- the guy behind the slimy mailer is a former staffer for Rubio.

Highly recommended you follow this link to the Miami Herald story and read all the details of this vile thing -- the racist tone to the mailer, the 19-year-old they duped to be the nominal sender, the full creepiness of those who want to represent us in the US House (Rivera) and Senate (Rubio).

I'm curious whether this sort of trick would be possible if the Republicans in the US Senate hadn't blocked the bill to require disclosure of those behind political action committees. Notice that: The Republicans are the villains in this, from the top in Congress down to our local politics here in South Florida. Here's a link to today's NY Times story on that Republican upright finger to the voters of the USA.

And thanks to the Miami Herald for working this story.

p.s. I'm adding Karl Rove to the roster of labels on this post in disgusted tribute to his eminence in dirty tricks.

UPDATE: Let's not forget that Joe Garcia is closely watched nationally and in Florida as a likely winner in this race. The Buzz report shows Joe is worthy of support, and then some. Hint: here's how to do it.

FL-25: A perfect storm for David Rivera

In the political world among the worst things that can happen to a candidate are:

• Having a record of domestic violence revealed;
• Accusation (with documents) of unethical fund-raising;
• Financial difficulty including foreclosure;
• Rebellion in the ranks;
• Sign of hypocrisy in important Cuba policy area;
• All of the above in the space of a couple weeks.

What a run of luck for David Rivera! Is there a Quintifecta for hapless politicos? We were wondering why he had a passle of challengers for the Republican nomination to run in Congressional District 25. Turns out the state representative for District 112 is vying for centipede class in the Feet of Clay competition.

Especially delicious is that the likely Republican US Senate candidate, Marco Rubio, is Rivera's good friend and foreclosure partner.

Go, Joe! I'm planning to spend Sunday afternoon with Joe Garcia, the Democratic candidate in FL-25, watching the World Cup final. You can sign up at this link on Joe Garcia 2010. Your blogger's maternal ancestry is 100 percent Dutch, so I'll be rooting for the Netherlands.

FL-25: What a pair are Rubio and Rivera! Can they get away with this?

The Florida Democratic Party has the questions right on this odd business from Marco Rubio and David Rivera. Except that your blogger would like to know when the Republican Party will retrieve its purportedly high ethical standards and send this pair back down to lobbying? What are they doing as candidates for high federal office? Your blogger would like to know.

Here's what the Joe Garcia (my choice for election to the US House in Florida District 25) campaign is pointing out, in the words of the Florida Democratic Party:

From the Department of You Can Make This Up:  Miami Lobbyists Marco Rubio and David Rivera are holding a fundraiser together today in Washington, DC.


Last week, it was reported that Rubio and his self proclaimed “disciple” David Rivera purchased a house together and then defaulted on the payments, allowing the property to fall into foreclosure.

The pair of ethically challenged Republican politicians have now unwittingly opened up a can of worms when their embarrassing financial tactics were made public.

Some Questions That Need To Be Answered:

Did Rubio and Rivera willfully withhold mortgage payments that were owed based on their mortgage contract?

Did this tactic of withholding payments allow them to renegotiate or offer the house as a short sale?

In either case did they have to disclose their income and assets? If so, what are they?

What did their stalling and negotiating tactics cost the government in lost property values or tax write-off for themselves or the banks?

And is this whole mess just another example of Marco Rubio getting another sweetheart mortgage deal from his political allies?

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?

FL-25: Crist switch gets the Republican name-callers into high gear

OK, the headline is a little premature. So far I've only got one Republican name-caller, but I'm sure there will be more.

The first out of the blocks is David Rivera, known on this blog as the Republican likely to be Joe Garcia's opponent for the US House in District 25. Last time we wrote about him, his ethical standards were quite low -- way behind even Jeb Bush in the ethical arena -- and now he's very high in the name-calling arena.

Read it on Naked Politics, the Herald's political blog, where Rivera says that what Crist is doing is the biggest betrayal in US history since Benedict Arnold. Wow! That's really big. Like almost sinking the American Revolution, George Washington and all. And what's Crist's offense? Dropping the ID of the party that has already dropped him -- that's what Crist is doing.

Now let's start looking for all the photos of David Rivera and Charlie Crist in fond embrace.

And while we may be distracted for a day or two by Crist's maneuver, remember that we will have to get back to listening to what Rivera says and searching for fact and meaning.

Another nail in the Republican coffin: Corruption alienates the faithful

The Miami Herald columnist and blogger Daniel Shoer Roth has an interesting blog post here, catching up with what we've been finding in recent years: Quite a few of those supposedly steadfast Republicans are coming over to our side. Summing it up:  "Republicans can't take Hispanic support for granted."

A more general rule would be that Republicans and Democrats shouldn't take anyone for granted.

And the lure of that party credit card can be too much when you need a bag of groceries, or a haircut, or a limo. Right, Marco Rubio?

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?

Someone should be asking Rubio is he’s still big on “citizen journalism”

Now that the dissembler who got notoriety for attacking ACORN has been unmasked as something like a burglar, would someone please ask Marco Rubio if he’s still enthusiastic about what he called “citizen journalism?” Does the Republican candidate for the US Senate (along with Charlie Crist) approve of intruding into US Senate offices and messing with the phone?

This is a video I did last September after Rubio spoke at my sailing club in Key Largo.

It was one of four videos in a blog post about Rubio linked here. Love the way he calls me a gentleman.

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."

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

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.

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.

Too much: Mark Foley, Rush Limbaugh, Marco Rubio in one blog post

Read it over at the Reid Report, where our friend Joy Reid reports.

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.

.

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.

Pretty crazy: Get the Club for Growth to take out Crist

They're watching Florida again already.

On Daily Kos Monday evening Markos himself has a post urging the Club for Growth to descend upon us and take down any viable Republican candidate for the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat now held by Mel Martinez (who, like Arlen Specter of PA, maybe couldn't win a Republican primary).

Remember how Specter blames the Club for Growth for wrecking moderate Republicanism? Let's do it in Florida, too.

And in addition, the photo of Obama and Crist should be displayed all the time to make the Republicans start cheering ABC, ABC, ABC. Anyone But Crist. So says Markos.

That's a Getty Images photo.

Oh, by the way, Crist is supposed to announce on Tuesday. Into the fray with Marco Rubio, for the Republican nomination.

UPDATE: Karen Thurman, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, neatly summarizes all the opportunity that lies in Crist's decision to bail out of Tallahassee and try for the Senate:

His decision creates a once in a generation opportunity for change in Florida and ensures that nothing will be the same after 2010.

In the next 20 months, there will be a fight for the Governor’s mansion, a United States Senate seat, three other statewide offices up for grabs, a number of seats in Congress to fight for, and with at least 9 open State Senate seats and 22 open State House seats that are currently held by Republicans, there will be other legislative races across the Sunshine State – and Floridians will cast their ballots and change the face of our state.

In other words: Democrats, it's time to concentrate on how to win a ton of open seats in November 2010. We can take Florida back.

And in Washington, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee throws cold water on the notion that Crist might be a popular governor because he and his gerrymandering party have done such a good job. Where do we stand after 30 months of Crist?

Florida Has Second Highest Foreclosure Rate. Florida is currently ranked second in home foreclosure activity. Florida recorded 18,946 foreclosures in March, a 33 percent increase from February. [Orlando Business Journal, 4/15/09]

Floridians Facing Job Losses, Foreclosures, Dwindling Bank Accounts. Crist is presiding over a historic collapse of the state's housing market, banking sector and construction industry, and a slowdown in tourism. Floridians struggle with job reductions, home foreclosures and dwindling bank accounts. [South Florida Sun Sentinel, 4/17/09]

Budget Hikes Taxes, Fees, Tuition While Cutting Spending, Including Elderly Care and State Workers’ Pay. Lawmakers in Tallahassee have been wrestling with a $6 billion budget gap. The budget recently passed by lawmakers includes $2 billion in new fees and taxes, pay cuts for state workers, tuition hikes, and cuts to elderly healthcare. [Ledger, 5/04/09; News Herald, 5/08/09]

A Facebook development

This column in Saturday's Miami Herald is a good exposition of your need to get a Facebook account. If Marco Rubio and Beth Reinhard are on Facebook, what's your excuse?

And once you've signed up, check out the Miami-Dade Democrats on Facebook, and sign up for our Group, and become a fan of our Page. A little search will reveal all.