Trey Radel, The Last Unashamed Citizen in Southwest Florida

So it was confirmed for me today that I will be represented through 2014 by a coke head. Of course, I knew that, so as discouraging as the news is, it's no great surprise to those of us living in the Congressional district of Trey Radel.

But was more disappointing as our esteemed Congressman held his first press conference since leaving rehab was the litany of lies, dodges and other disrespectful bits of behavior intended to leave me confident my representation is in good hands in Washington, D.C. And we saw just the most recent bit of befuddling antics surrounding his October arrest.

First came the strange revelation in mid-November that Radel was busted for coke possession a month prior. How that was kept quiet in this Internet age is anyone's guess, but few would guess an explanation that meets any definition of the word good. Radel wouldn't resign, and surprising to me leadership in Washington wouldn't push him out.

Now he has finished a stint in rehab, but he swears his only addiction is alcohol and that he just tried coke a "handful" of times. Besides the bummer of having one of those times involve a DEA agent, that's completely inconsistent with the account of Mike Adams, a producer for Radel's old Fox radio show. From the News-Press:

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“He would talk about his life, of being a traveler,” Adams said of Radel. “He would talk about hiking, taking his backpack and hiking in Colombia And, you know, it always led to, because of who Colombia is, it always led to drugs. We’d go to break and I’d say ‘Man, I bet the coke was crazy’ and he’d say, ‘Oh my God, you have no idea.’ ”
---

So here I am, myself and my neighbors left with a representative who admits to alcoholism, lies about his use of cocaine and remains a hypocrite who pushed for drug testing of welfare recipients while he was violated the law himself. For all my life following politics, I've never imagines being this embarrassed by my own representative.

Allow me, if it matters, to join the chorus of those who feel Radel truly should resign and leave with it some unsolicited advice. The problem right now is no longer that Radel broke the law, that he hid that from constituents or even that he lied tonight to his constituents. It's that he insists none of this affected his work in Washington, even as he missed a critical budget vote. It's that we have no confidence anymore in our representatives own sense of reality.

But most important, it is that Radel has yet to pay any significant price outside of personal shame.

Even there, he managed to shield himself away from most of the scrutiny and stares by hiding in a Naples rehab facility. Pity Amy Wegmann, who gave up a bright journalism career for husband's ambitions but now weathers this storm from outside that center's walls.

Radel says he is sorry, but right now, we have no reason to believe it, not when he has paid no political consequence even as he has acted in dereliction of his own duties. Radel does not think he should give up the seat he shamed.

Frankly, I'm surprised DC leadership hasn't shown him the boot yet, though an ethics investigation is finally underway. It isn't like there is much risk of losing the seat; Radel in 2012 won the district with 62 percent to Democrat Jay Roach's sub-36 percent performance. Actually, Radel is about the only Republican that could still lose this seat if remains there until next Fall and comes out on top of a crowded primary.

But until Radel grows some sense of shame (unlikely) or leadership enforces some sense of order, we're stuck here with this disgrace of Congressman.

Yay.

So Far Still To Go

Here we stand, weeks after the verdict that exonerated George Zimmerman of killing Trayvon Martin, and the case still dominates the news, the blogosphere and most of our Facebook feeds (especially those of us who live in Florida). In today's rapid world of electronic news, that in itself is pretty astounding. But if there is an explanation how a single trial, a single tragedy, can grip our collective attention so long, it is probably the way this case has revealed so much about our collective selves, much of that remarkably unflattering.

I have been terribly discouraged just today as several friends from high school posted the same lengthy questionnaire supposedly intended to inform us of details that obviously would convince of Zimmerman's innocence but which in fact only depress about the mindset not only of George Zimmerman that night but of the people who watched this case play out through such jaded and prejudiced eyes.

Race and the American Justice System

It's hard right now to digest this verdict. I've been telling friends and family for a week that I this trial was stressing me out entirely too much, but part of it is that I always knew this is a possibility. The Stand Your Ground law is extremely flawed, and the right lawyer in front of the right jury can get this verdict.

So we've seen the punditry and the arguing and the ridiculousness. Now a man who killed a child - a man who has never denied doing so - is free.

But alas, that's happened before and it will happen again. The real reason we are all so anxious now, more so with this than with Casey Anthony or OJ Simpson or any number of others, is that racial tension is very much in the air, and very few people can or will acknowledge why.

I've been thinking about this a lot since this trial began. I don't know that I'm the best person to try, but I've seen so many people utterly unqualified to say this is not about race do just that. Maybe I can at least try and explain what those people cannot or will not see.

First off, let me make the wild suggestion that I don't consider George Zimmerman a racist. At least not in any significant fashion. Would he have gone stalking a white teenager in the streets? Who knows. But after having the facts of this case hammered in repeatedly over the last few weeks, I have no doubt at this point that he would have shot a 10-year-old girl that not if she came at him armed with a bottle of Snapple.

The point really is, what if he had done that? That may seem a strange mental exercise, but just walk through it. Zimmerman said he feared for his life because the person he was stalking with a loaded weapon came at him, caught him off-guard and put him on the ground, said he would die that night, then seemed to go for his gun.

None of those facts depend on Trayvon Martin being bigger or stronger, or on him knowing mixed martial arts (as this rather disturbing RedState article suggests was important). Virtually anyone could have done the things which George Zimmerman says prompted him to shoot a child at point blank range.

So what if it had been a woman? What if it had been a white teenager, even one build like a fullback? I realize some may argue, but many people, including myself, can only guess Zimmerman would have gone to jail that night, Stand Your Ground likely never would have been discussed, and none of us outside a small neighborhood in Sanford would have any awareness of this case.

That's where the problem lies. We have a justice system today which applies different treatment based on race of the VICTIM.

At the heart of the defense has always been a rather offensive notion: that a black teenaged boy is inherently a threat to your life. Not a black girl. Not a white boy. No, the one time it
s ok to shoot to kill is if a young black man is at the other end of the gun because, who knows, somehow they may have the power to kill you.

There have always been complaints that the justice system is less likely to give the benefit of doubt to a black youth facing charges. But for most of us, at least those who are white like myself, that's a complaint that doesn't consume our thoughts. There may be greater scrutiny on black youths, after all, but if he stays out of trouble, a young black man can still grow up to be president.

This is different, though. Trayvon Martin didn't create this situation, however he responded to it. He died because he was in wrong place at the wrong time and handled it the wrong way. Alas, that too has happened to people before and it will happen again.

But usually, when you bring a gun with you to stalk someone and that someone ends up dead, the justice system will bring you to justice, particularly if they find you standing over the body with a smoking gun.

There are a lot of people in American confused and hurt about what makes this case so different.

The fight begins. All supporters must be welcome.

There are two important things to think about when you read this Palm Beach Post item. The first is that all supporters of marriage equality must get in fighting shape right now. The other is that we absolutely cannot start beating away people who are on our side.

From the post:
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Former NBA star Tim Hardaway tonight is scheduled to become the first petition-signer on the Equal Marriage Florida effort to put a proposed constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex marriage in the state on the November 2014 ballot... Equal Marriage Florida would define marriage as a “union of two persons” and would erase a gay marriage ban approved by voters only five years ago.
---

As I already noted in a prior post, it will be hard to pass this item. While I think a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Florida today would surely fail because it couldn't hit 60 percent, reversing this terrible decision from just five years ago will be a challenge because that high hurdle is now our burden.

And that brings me to the second critical aspect of this fight. We cannot scoff at anyone's support. Not anyone.

It will be hard to stomach for many to fight alongside Tim Hardaway in this fight, a man who made headlines making unabashed homophobic remarks at just the same moment the last gay marriage fight in Florida was gearing up. He was beaten up for that, and seems to have fully embraced the equal rights agenda now. We need to welcome people who change their mind into the fold.

It wasn't so long ago that the great fear of straights supporting gay rights was that we would be mistaken for gay. I'd love to tell you that was never a concern of mine growing up, but this I don't think I would have marched in the streets at age 19 for gay rights just because I would be afraid what others would assume. Of course, I got over that at a younger age than certain NBA all-stars, but that's not the point.

There is a reason that we didn't see a pro athlete in one of America's major team sports come out until this year. The attitudes on personal issues like that are different from situation to situation. If we preach tolerance, we need to allow people to evolve and embrace them when they reach the other side of this great divide. Our job is to coax people into our position using reason, not embarrass them by waving the finger of shame.

This has struck me especially this year, we saw the first GOP senator come out in favor of gay marriage. Rob Portman changed his position because his son is gay, and that changed his position. Of course, Dick Cheney it may be presumed was at least influenced by similar circumstance. Liberals unwilling to put down the sword for even a second chastise these individuals for having selfish reasons for coming to the side of angels.

The New York Times' Paul Krugman said of Portman:
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While enlightenment is good, wouldn’t it have been a lot more praiseworthy if he had shown some flexibility on the issue before he knew that his own family would benefit? I’ve noticed this thing quite a lot in American life lately — this sort of cramped vision of altruism in which it’s considered perfectly acceptable to support only those causes that are directly good for you and yours.
---

But so what? Hardway may only have come around on gay rights because he was afraid of losing endorsement deals. Portman may only have rethought his position on gay marriage because a ban hurts his own child. Do you know what that makes these men?

Allies.

Folks, this is how change happens. The reason marriage equality supporters were losing this issue so badly 10 years ago wasn't because we weren't organized. It wasn't because we needed better spokesmen or better funding. Improvement in those area helps, but in a democracy, none of those things are what truly wins the day.

We were losing 10 years ago because the vast majority of Americans thought we were wrong. We lost on Amendment 2 five years ago more than 3 of every 5 Floridians favored codified bigotry over equal rights. We only win this issue when we convince people who once that we were wrong that we in fact are right.

Now, momentum is so clearly on our side it seems unimaginable that the tide will turn against gay marriage. But make no mistake, the winning shot on this one is not made by Jason Collins. It's made by Tim Hardaway. He is the one who changed the game he was playing. And we need the game-changers on our side.

Repeal and Replace Amend 2 Now

Florida voters need to remove the term Prop 8 from their heads. It's gone now and it never affected them in the first place.

In all the excitement about rulings this week, entirely too much attention has been placed on Prop 8. Certainly, it's a big deal that same-sex marriage is legal in the largest state of the union, but more most of America, it is still against the law. And many Florida liberals have appeared startlingly unaware for years that on the same day California passed a law dashing marriage equality in one Sunshine State, Florida voters were preemptively discriminating against homosexuals here in the other one.

I imagine most of the readers on this obscure blog understand the landmark court decisions this week didn't legalize gay marriage nationwide. It's much more complicated. If you happen to live in one of a dozen states where court rulings, legislative action or voter referendum has come down on the side of human rights, your fight is over. But for Florida and 37 other states, the fight has only just begun.

Here, we need to do two things, and they won't be easy.

Holy Crap! Jennifer Carroll is out?

I would never have predicted this (via the Miami Herald):

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Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigned, Gov. Rick Scott’s office announced Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, she was interviewed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is assisting in a national probe of Allied Veterans of the World, a Florida-based nonprofit that operates a chain of internet cafes.

Carroll once owned a public relations firm that represented Allied Veterans, and she did work for the company at the same time she served in the Florida House.

---

I have to concede that I always viewed Carroll as one of the legitimate government people in the Voldemort administration. She is not the one I figured would get perp-walked out of office. Reading the story completely, it is quite possible this matter, being pushed forward by an investigation in Oklahoma, may be a guilt-by-association thing. Only time will truly tell.

Carroll was actually a supporter of Bill McCollum in the governor's race two years ago, and was tapped by Rick Scott as a running mate in an apparent attempt to unite he party.

I'm very curious how this whole thing plays out, but at the very least, this will result in a judgment issue for Scott. Why, of all the potential running mates with legitimate government credentials, did Scott go with someone doing this type of outside work in addition to her public service? Was he that poor at vetting? Was it just a craven move motivated by a desire for diversity on the ticket?

And if Carroll ends up not having done anything wrong, will Scott have to answer for cutting her loose at the first sound of trouble.

In truth, Carroll has been a surprising source of problems for the administration. Allegations leveled against her by former staffer Caretha Cole, and Carroll's unfortunate response to those rumors, garnered embarrassing attention to the normally invisible office of Lt. Governor.

But seeing her depart from office, especially as the next gubernatorial cycle just starts to rev up, is going to be troublesome for Scott. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving administration.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/13/3283274/lt-gov-jennifer-carroll-resigns.html#storylink=cpy

Why Poland Springs?

Sorry. It had to be said. If our U.S. Senator had to take an opportunity at the national stage and use it turn himself into a meme, couldn't he at least have grabbed some Zephyrhills?

Too many bottled water companies call Florida home to evade getting called out on this one Marco Rubio!

Lake County's Bigoted History

I should have learned a long time ago that it never was good for Lake County to make national headlines. The possibility the school district may ban all school clubs to make sure a pro-gay club isn't allowed to operate at Carver Middle School leaves me hiding me head in shame once again.

I'm not sure where to start on the bad publicity surrounding this, but a good place is probably the sad history of the Lake County schools' brushes with national attention. I was in high school when the America First controversy garnered attention from across the nation. Those who did not grow up in Lake County can read that link to the New York Times (that's the New York FRIGGIN' Times) for background. The short version is that the School Board, after seeing the Christian Coalition get three members elected on the five-member board, voted to require history classes teach that America was morally superior to all other cultures in the world. It is hard to believe this whole episode happened in the early 1990s.

As someone who lived in the county at that time, I cannot overstate the extraordinary embarrassment foisted upon everybody living there by this utter nonsense. This should not be forgotten by School Board members considering taking a stand firmly on the side of homophobia in a world changing faster that street-front of 441.

As that Times article notes, a political solution was eventually found to the problem with the political ouster of these School Board members, in a Republican primary no less.

But something left unexplored in this article is the long list of specific embarrassments we suffered thanks to this crew. I myself testified in front of a School Board committee at one point because the district, which at the time beamed Channel 1 into classrooms each morning, was planning to censor a report on AIDS which discussed condoms. Because I attended hearings in Tavares, I was one of the only students in the district to see the full report—it did get censored—but I still cannot fathom the logic that mentioning sex in front of teenagers in the context of a terrible and fatal disease was going to be arousing, but going to school uneducated about the dangers of unsafe sex would keep youngsters on the path of the righteous.

If only this was the darkest part of history for education in Lake County. No, that distinction belongs to the entire 28-year reign of Sheriff Willis McCall.

The wickedness of McCall's time as a "law and order man" in Lake County could fill books, but his most notorious interaction with the learning of children likely came in 1954, when the sheriff ejected five Croation children out of a Mount Dora school because they appeared colored. This happened the same year that the Supreme Court declared desegregation illegal in the famous and surely-known-even-in-Lake-County verdict for Brown v. Board of Education. Yet in a public hearing, McCall said the children weren't allowed in white schools, even pointing directly at a 13-year-old girl and declaring he didn't "like the shape of that one's nose."

Right now, school officials in Lake County are concerned the actions of the School Board today will make the county appear out of step with the rest of America. Unfortunately, such action would be par for the course.

In an interesting historic twist, Lake County's Chistian Coalition majority was booted from office by voters the same year Willis McCall died. I naively hoped at a younger age that the county's days of discrimination and its philosophy of supremacy was sent to the hells of history in 1994. Sadly, that does not appear to be so.

It is important to note that a Gay-Straight Alliance, as students at Carver Middle School wish to start today, is devoted to promoting tolerance, not to recruiting homosexuals. It does not seek to "make" kids gay. Likewise, any fears one might have that sexual experimentation was going on within a middle school should want groups like this to be sanctioned and sponsored by professional faculty. That's the way to ensure student's conflict about their personal identity are dealt with in an appropriate setting, not through putting themselves in private, potentially predatory situations.

The issue of fairness should also be considered. The School Board never batted an eye about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (nor should it have). It also hasn't ever stopped clubs with no academic purpose whatsoever to form. At one point, Leesburg High School had a Dungeons and Dragons club.

But I hope above all that the School Board, the next time it meets, considers how their decision on this matter will be viewed in 20 or 60 years. Despite his political popularity at the time, the actions of Willis McCall are viewed universally as monstrous bigotry today. Lake County already looks behind the time on tolerance by entertaining a ban on student groups. If such a ruling is truly put into place now, will the decision in the future be viewed any differently than the actions of McCall?

My genuine fear is that history will see this ban as a continuation of hateful policies. After a few decades pass, there will be visible a clear line from banning Croatians to boasting superiority to banning gays. In every case, brave voices always stood up and said these policies were wrong. Will the Lake County School Board stand with the brave or the bigoted?

Bill McBride, 1945-2012

The news of the passing of Bill McBride took by sorrowful surprise today. Considering the man never was as successful in politics as many of us hoped he would be, I know his death will not be seen widely as a major event. But for so many reasons, I feel loss at the news.

Of course, I have always liked that McBride went to the same high school I did. The notion a Yellowjacket could have become governor of Florida was undeniably appealing from the moment I learned he was pondering entering the race in 2002. But I also appreciated how his small town heritage informed his politics, sometimes to his detriment in terms of strategy but always in a way that earned admiration on a personal level. I think back to how these powerful individuals who lived their lives sweeping the state end to end would always make sure there was never a day when one parent wasn't with their children, even if that meant rejiggering a high-stakes campaign. McBride's family came before his ambition, and I weep today for the now-grown children Bert and Lexi.

McBride, of course, was a remarkably successful lawyer before he tried his hand at statewide politics, so that loss should not be overlooked. In the end, Alex Sink was the more politically successful part of this power couple, something I would never have guessed a decade ago.

I recall when I first met McBride. He was campaigning at a Democratic banquet in Leesburg. His message at the time, that he was a better challenger to Jeb Bush's re-election than the baggage-laden Janet Reno, went over remarkably well with this hometown crowd. In the end, the fact McBride beat Reno and lost to Bush was a lesson to Florida Democrats on being overly cautious. (Could Bush have really bludgeoned Reno with Waco as the country was mounting up for a full-scale war with Iraq?) But for the Democrats at Silver Lake, the simple prospect of having a governor who knew what Lake Griffin looked like in the 1970s and could it to the polluted mess of modern times was enough reason to forgo any other options in the gubernatorial contest.

McBride spoke to me and told me he was already tracking what his hometown paper, The Daily Commercial, was writing about his own bid. He had read a recent article I wrote questioning if McBride, even if he won the nomination, could even carry Lake County in the end (he couldn't, it turned out). But he said he wanted me kept abreast of the race and gave me a direct cell phone number to reach him whenever I needed. Curses, I lost the number pretty quickly, but the campaign kept in touch to the bitter end.

The paper that year was the first in Florida to endorse McBride in the general, a risky move in a Republican County but one which still feels right. The guy was a hometown hero, even if he ended up being a bit politically naive. But I loved that someone growing up in the small town, conservative bastion of Leesburg had, just like myself, grown up realizing progressive policies would benefit the region more than free market-conservatism. The fact he was one of the most successful businessmen in Florida made him a good spokesperson for that message as well.

He wasn't perfect. I recall interviewing him about his longtime relationship with Gary Morse, the politically powerful owner of The Villages, and he simply said "I don't know what your problem with Gary is?" Oh, where to start... But even then, it struck me his failure to support oversight of explosive urban sprawl in the case of The Villages had more to do with misplaces personal loyalty than financial corruption.

I am saddened by news of McBride's death, though not entirely shocked. Even during the race, it was obvious the man was not the poster child for healthy living, and at the paper, we would get calls regularly from people talking about his dramatic shifts in weight. But I certainly wished for a long and happy life for McBride.

Going forward, I pray for Alex Sink and her family, and I hope still for the future McBride tried to achieve. I hope the days of the small town Democrat combining rural values with progressive sense haven't died with him.

RIP

Let The Consternation Begin

We saw it coming. Now the moment has arrived. Charlie Crist, whose early political stances earned him the nickname Chain Gang Charlie, is now a Democrat. From the Tampa Bay Times, which seems to have the fullest account: 
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Crist... signed papers changing his party from independent to Democrat. He did so during a Christmas reception at the White House, where President Barack Obama greeted the news with a fist bump for the man who had a higher profile campaigning for Obama's re-election this year than any Florida Democrat.
---

The paper goes on to tell some of these reasons Democratic partisans should be happy about this. The man is almost certainly running for governor in two years, and quite frankly would be a slam dunk to kick Gov. Voldemort and his deatheaters back into hiding.

 But all I feel is dread. Why? Because Charlie Crist has done all the things I said last May that would make his worth our consideration as a viable Democratic candidate, and it all makes feel a little ill. Part of it is that the rank political opportunism emanating from the man's political soul smells more than ever precisely because he was willing to do all those things. But strong as well is the fact no politician in the country better exemplifies what is so wrong with the Republican Party post-2010, and what makes the Democratic Party the one which genuinely represents a cross-section of America.

A man who served as the standard bearer for conservative values in a hopeless Senate bid in Florida as recently as 1998 is now treated as an alien at Marco Rubio's tea party. That Democrats will consider a man who even with his rush to the left would be a moderate within our own ranks speaks to the open-minded of those on the left.

 Of course, that also opens our side up to being dragged rightward in the central positions of our party, and that is distressing. Great candidates like Pam Iorio look like moderates today but could be branded communists by the time a primary with Crist was completed. A candidate like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, whom I have greatly admired since her days in the state Senate, will get lambasted as Marxists from the start should she enter the race.

But then again, Crist may have done as much as any Florida Democrat to help President Obama win Florida this year. That means a lot with party officials, and more with moderate voters.

So what's a good Democrat to do? I suppose we're back to basics. Fight hard for the candidates we want representing the party in primary season, then going to the general election with whoever comes out alive. I will refrain from attacking Crist with the vigor I did in 2010, but I have not forgotten his roots, even as he has done. And we'll see how the 2014 cycle shakes out.

But somehow, the man who almost single-handedly made the 2010 cycle in Florida the craziest of my lifetime seems poised outdo himself in 2014, and he's doing so with the blessing of my president. This is going to be fun.

This comment says so much about outgoing Rep. Allen "Wild Wild" West: --- “Why would anyone want to get rid of a person that is born and raised in the inner city, third of four generations in the military—just an American success story?” asks West, from the living room of his Palm Beach Gardens home overlooking a pool and golf course. “I’m not some guy that came from a rich political family or anything like that,” he says. “I’m just an everyday guy, but I have a passion for my country.” --- The rest of the Bloomberg BusinessWeek article is great, but that comment truly speaks for itself. I can't imagine anything else that would offer any more insight into this crazy man's outlook on the world and the way it revolves around him.

The Problem With Term Limits

A funny thing happened to a state representative in line for the Speakership. Voters in his own district appear to have fired him this week. From the Ocala Star-Banner: --- In a farewell email to his Republican colleagues on Friday, would-be Florida House Speaker Chris Dorworth says he expects to lose his close race for re-election after a recount. The Lake Mary lawmaker trailed Democrat Mike Clelland, a political newcomer, in central Florida's District 29 by 123 votes pending an automatic recount tentatively set for Sunday. --- This of course shows that the night Tuesday was better for Democrats than we ever dare dream, but it also highlights a little-discussed but very real problem with term limits in the state House. I know, there are so many, but the fact leadership gets decided years in advance is true folly. See, Dorworth was not set to become Speaker this month. He was expected to take House reins in 2014, after a whole 'nother election where all 120 members of the House were to stand for vote. If memory served, this is the first time someone is succession to be speaker has been voted out since term limits truly kicked in after the 2000 election. Since that time, the party caucuses in Tallahassee have early on decided not only the upcoming leader of the party for the next two years, as happens in the U.S. House, but pick leaders the next couple sessions as well. There are often leadership fights along the way to try and change course, and efforts have been made to change the makeup of both the House and Senate through primary challenges by people unhappy with succession plans. But that never works. It takes something like what happened with Dorworth to truly shake up the process. The voters have to do it. Many problems were predicted with term limits such as an outsourced influence of legislative staffs. Other problems have made themselves readily evident, like the too-easily-accepted influence of lobbyists. But this problem is one that comes from the legislators themselves. It makes no sense to plot out future sessions, but it has happened. This means anyone dreaming of leadership is fighting for it the minute they take get sworn in to their freshman term in the House or Senate. That places personal ambition over the higher good of serving your district. My guess, though I certainly haven't followed this one closely, is that voters in Dorworth's Lake Mary district had a problem with that. This problem is systemic. But voters have to realize the consequences of enforcing eight year term limits. Nobody likes politicians, and everyone wants them put in their place, but realize term limits enforce bad behavior and an obsession on Tallahassee politics ahead of what's happening at home.

Don't Let West Make Us Forget Recount Nightmares

One of the sweetest victories for Democrats in Florida this week was the ouster of Allen "Wild Wild" West from the U.S. House of Representatives. After watching West beat Ron Klein last year in the midst of a tea party wave, it felt good to know voters in South Florida wouldn't tolerate this man's insane antics. But the margin of defeat was narrow, and if anyone should be sympathetic to the agony that comes along with losing a close election, it is Florida Democrats.

That's why I think we should resist the temptation to belittle West's recent attempts at getting a hand recount. Now, I can appreciate the irony that after Republicans responded to the 200 election they made  it harder to justify a recount, not easier, West is finding himself a bit outside the margin for having a recount done automatically.

But I also feel strongly that recounts are a good thing. They strengthen democracy and erase hurt feelings, which often come coupled with denial.

Here's the facts: Patrick Murphy won this race by less than 3,000 votes. That's just a 0.66 percent victory, and against a wingnut opponent running in South Florida, Democrats should think twice about gloating with that type of total. In truth, Murphy had plenty of material to bury this guy. Instead, it was a squeaker.

West knows what its like to be on the opposite side of a squeaker too. When he got elected, it wasn't known until morning. But he did end up with a bigger margin than this.

So now he wants a hand count. Honestly, we shouldn't be afraid of that. The odds are statistically very low that a hand count would overturn the results of the election. More importantly, they would only do that if West had in fact won the race.

In the 12 years since Bush v. Gore, voting rights has become too partisan an issue. Democrats have been fighting for ballot access, for transparency in election management, against unaccountable electronic voting machines and against a Legislature that felt the only thing that went wrong with 2000 is that we spent so much time checking the math.

But the reason Democrats left 2000 so bitter is that they felt nobody ever did a full account of the election. Had that happened and Bush was still ahead, even it was by a margin even smaller than 537 votes, we would have licked out wounds and gone home, however unhappy.

The positive when we defeat someone like West by this close a margin is that it will show folks on the right the importance of maintaining integrity in the democratic process. Let West sit there and watch the manual count of more than 318,000 votes. Let Republicans take a close look. Let them wrestle with what to do when someone cast a write-in for Allen West just to have it thrown out because they should have bubbled in his name. Let them see the number of South Florida voters who learned from the Butterfly Ballot to never fill out a ballot incorrectly again.

Let West see more than 160,000 people who came to polls expressly for the purpose of firing him. Let that sink in.

This will be better for democracy. It will be better for disposing of poor feelings among Tea Party Republicans who just can't imagine how Allen West could lose. It will be better for Patrick Murphy to go to Washington with as few people questioning his credibility as possible.

Let Allen West win this one. We already won the round that mattered.

A Great Night in the Sunshine State

After suffering through the demoralizing 2010 cycle, I found myself walking into these elections more pessimistic than in the past, but the voters of Florida surprised me in a pleasant way. I'd love to congratulate such great Democrats as Bill Nelson, Joe Garcia, Patrick Murphy, Lois Frankel and—of course—President Barack Obama.

But Florida Democrats also need to understand a world exists tomorrow where Obama will never be on a ballot again and where liberals must find a way to incite minority voting during years when such an inspirational figure is no on the ballot. We can beat the economic inanity of Mitt Romney, the bigotry of Allen West and the pure corruption of Joe Garcia in a year like this, but we need to find out ways to do it in off years as well.

I know this blog has been largely dead this cycle, but I will try to get some port-mortem stuff up here in the next few days. The takeaway from this election, I hope, is a reminder that Democrats can do anything in Florida when mobilized, but we need to be prepared to defend our spoils in 2014 and beyond. That means prepping for battle now.

The Silliness of Questioning Unemployment

The amount of paranoia and a widespread belief in nonsensical conspiracy theories has reached a level unseen in years with this presidential race. The recent questioning of unemployment figures is just the most recent chapter, but one which in many ways shows how intellectual rationalization has overtaken common sense even among the sensible right wing.

Darrell Issa right now is publicly toying with whether the Bureau of Labor and Statistics should be fact-checked by Congress. And what better agency to depoliticize facts than Congress, right? Of course, plenty of folks by now have explained how the BLS is insulated from politics, and others have discussed the social ramifications of questioning every bit of data that they don't like.

What I have heard few discuss in the last week is the futility of this theory in the first place. In other words, there is nothing to gain—NOTHING—from faking unemployment numbers. The Obama administration would not only be acting criminally if they did such a thing, but they would gain nothing from it.

Why? Because people don't really give a shit how many people in this country are unemployed. They care if THEY are unemployed.

To be a little more fair, they care if they and the people they know and love are out of work or under threat of losing their jobs. Statistics from the BLS help economists determine the general election of the economy, but individuals base their own thoughts on the state of the nation based on the anecdotal evidence around them.

For example, I four years ago had just been laid off, along with a couple dozen other people at the newspaper where I was working. Weeks after that, my wife was very nearly laid off from the same paper. I got a new job, but within a few months, my employer did across-the-board salary cuts and laid off a couple of co-workers in my new place of business. I don't know exactly what the unemployment rate for the country or the state of Florida was at the time, but I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, the economy was in the tank, and no positive jobs report at the time could convince me otherwise.

But since then, I have had my salary restored and earned a promotion at work. My wife is happier at her job, and does not fear a sweeping round of layoffs the likes of which were happening every few months at her company not so long ago. The professional colleagues I've kept up with for years, most working in that lucrative field of print media, hold jobs now, often in different places than they worked four years ago, and do not live in fear of their positions being consolidated. Honestly, the ones I know who are looking for work are doing so because they see job openings appearing on classified sites for the first time in many years.

Additionally, I see cranes and bulldozing on commercial lots which sat empty for years. I hear of business expansions and grant openings. I think the economy is doing astoundingly better than four years ago, and it's not because of any jobs report. It is what I see with my own eyes.

Is it possible things are only better in my corner of the world? That the country as a whole is worse off? Of course that's a possibility. But if that's the case, a majority of voters will see those circumstances and vote with a different perception of the world informing them. They won't be swayed by a jobs report any more than I would.

This gets me to where I see some real dishonesty being perpetuated in a truly nefarious way. Because I don't think the people complaining about this jobs report being fixed actually see things too differently than I do. Does anyone believe Jack Welch is feeling any pain in this economy? Is he worse off than four years ago? Are his friends in economic trouble? Ha!

If there is any legitimate reason for him to question the jobs numbers, it may because he isn't being the job creator he promises he could be and that Republicans suggest we worship. Maybe he doesn't believe the report because neither he nor his corporate colleagues is creating any new jobs. But then small businesses are being opened all across the country right now, undeterred by health care reform, estate tax returns or any of the supposed job-killing measures employed by Obama.

The real reason Republicans are pissed about these job numbers isn't that they see more unemployed people in their circle of friends. It is that they have trumpeted for months now that Obama is in a bad spot for re-election because no president gets re-elected with unemployment north of 8 percent because no one has since FDR. It is an article of faith that America will vote out incumbents if the unemployment is 8.1, but may not if it is 7.9 percent.

I always thought this argument was ridiculous for a number of reasons. First, only two presidents—Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush—lost re-election with employment above 8. Obama, unlike either of them but like FDR, has seen unemployment go down, not up, during his time in office, and I think that makes more difference. The other reason I thought this reasoning was stupid is that no one knew what the unemployment level would by come November. I got my I-told-you-so moment last Friday, and the right responded with this conspiratorial nonsense.

Bottom line is this. Jack Welch doesn't live in my world, and he sees things differently than I do. He will vote based on what he sees. So will all of us.

If Republicans are scared of an improving economy, that's sad. But the reason they are scared is not that a BLS report suggested a 0.3 reduction in unemployment. It's that they can see things are getting better, and they hate that.

Poisoning The Judiciary

The new inexplicable Republican fever today is the push to repeal three members of the Florida Supreme Court: R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince. These justices are guilty of that crime-in-Republican-eyes of existing at all.

Not to say we shouldn't take this seriously, but I have to say this is most likely a matter of Republicans throwing a lot of money uphill. In that sense, I am thrilled! While this plot to poison our courts and give reactionary Gov. Rick Scott the right to pack the bench is certainly insidious and wrong, it is also absolute folly.

First off, let's touch on the real motives. The state GOP officials who endorsed the repeal effort today sourced some insignificant ruling on a death penalty case six years ago, but the deep feelings run further. Most notably, the state Supreme Court was the legal force pushing us to count votes in an election in 2000, and Republicans have never forgiven them.

The irony in both cases, of course, is that conservatives won out in the end and got their way. But never mind that. Any vote against the wishes of conservatives is "judicial activism" so these justices are awful.

The good news? This has been tried before and never, ever worked. Not even in the highly partisan atmosphere post-Bush v. Gore when Lewis and Quince survived a similar repeal effort the next election cycle. Not when pro-life nuts and racists went after Justice Leander Shaw in 1990. Not ever.

To date, in fact, no Florida justice has ever failed a vote for merit retention in the state of Florida. And I don't think an issue as not-sexy as judicial merit retention will draw anyone but the most basal of base voters to turn up at polls. By the way, they are there anyway thanks to their vitriolic and irrational fear of President Obama.

Nevertheless, the Koch brothers funded ads airing on Florida stations today calling for a no vote on merit retention.

Our best response, though, is to just laugh. Yes, I know we should stay vigilant and make sure to keep these voices of rationality on the bench, especially when such reactionary people control the legislative process in Tallahassee. But mocking the billionaires funding this effort helps too.

Consider that this money could be spent on helping Mitt Romney win Florida (and he's losing badly right now). It could fund Connie Mack's efforts to unseat Sen. Bill Nelson (an effort which is going even worse).

No, instead those dollars are being spent to fight judicial activism by vetoing the decision of thoughtful justices through a purely political process. This isn't just hypocrisy on display. It is sweet entertainment dripped with schadenfreude.

This effort is scrupulous and wrong. But it is also bound to fail. To have at it.

Don't Be So Surprised

I'm not going to say the implosion of Mitt Romney in the past few weeks has been anything short of shocking. Between the exploitation of a foreign tragedy, the leak of an embarrassingly frank talk to Boca donors, the proclaiming of the $200k-$250k earners as "middle class and the delayed tax return release, this has been a spectacular parade of unforced errors like I have never seen.

But there has been a cry among flustered Republicans that this was a year the GOP could not lose. Not that they care what I think, but rubbish.

That last link goes a widely-quoted piece by Peggy Noonan essentially blaming Romney's poor polling on a sloppy campaign. But if nobody noticed in the clown show that was the 2012 Republican primary, Mitt was the best they got.

Does anyone really think this election would be closer had Republicans nominated Newt Gingrich? Or Rick Santorum? Or laughably Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain? Of course not. But that was the choice presented to voters.

Now, that's not to say this list of Republicans from the shallow end of the cestpool are truly the most attractive candidates for president. But the greatest sign last year that the tide, whatever you think of jobs reports, was in our favor was the number of folks who stayed on the sidelines. Mike Huckabee. Sarah Palin. Mitch Daniels. Jeb Bush. Really, Romney and Rick Perry were the only major contenders any realistic Republican was dreaming about who actually threw a hat in the ring. Perry, it turned out, was not ready for primetime, so we ended up where we are today.

Actually, I laid out more than two years ago the reasons that while Jeb may well harbor White House ambitions, 2012 wasn't the year to pursue them. My top reason:

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Jeb Bush won't run unless he can win. He knows that, unlike governor, there are no second chances at the White House. 
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Barack Obama at no point in the last four years has seemed like a loser for re-election. That gets forgotten by Republicans so blinded by hatred of his liberal principles that cannot see the broader view of the president. Let's just check out some conventional GOP wisdom.

Republicans believe Obama is ruining this country by taking it far to the left, yet he has pushed tax structures well to the right of uber-moderate Bill Clinton. Indeed, most liberals have been starkly disappointed that he failed even to go that far. The same goes for the hardly-ambitious ObamaCare reforms which look more like DoleCare even than RomneyCare.

While Republicans believe Obama has done way too much, most liberals, and I believe moderates, feel he has actually done too little.

In that sense, it seems no surprise that the Romney campaign has floundered so. The message of the GOP, after all, is that intervention is the wrong medicine, but Romney as a challenger to an incumbent has to make the case this president has not done enough to fix the economy. Those messages simply don't jive.

So Obama was always a favorite. And in their hearts, Jeb and Huck and Sarah and Mitch and Marco and Fred and everybody viable candidate with some base instinct for the lay of the land knew it. The polls have born that out too, with Romney failing to hold a lead in the polls since cinching the nominations and finally having to share broadcast time with a Democrat.

The growing conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney with his recent gaffes has lost the election. But the truth is he was never winning in the first place.

An Insignificant Purge

It appears any great fears about a voter purge significantly affecting the Florida election this year have been calmed. Thanks to a highly scrutinized process—and don't let anyone convince you the scrutiny was anything less than critical—Gov. Rick Scott's efforts to purge non-citizens from the polls resulted in just over 200 people getting cleared off voter rolls.

All but two counties (including quite sadly the one in which I live) had stopped purging from Scott's once-mega list of potentially fraudulent voters. The number of voters being dumped now seems a very reasonable assessment of how many people might be in a state of nearly 20 million people who were both illegal immigrants and who had the gall to register to vote. Truthfully, the bulk of the 207 people being purged from the rolls likely never voted in a single election.

The big takeaway to me is that Florida officials who embarked an obviously partisan mission tinged with racism ultimately did nothing but demonstrate how small a problem in-person voter fraud actually is. This has been another embarrassing episode in a state with a pungent reputation for protecting voters' rights.

West's Disgusting Vision of Unity and Patriotism

When the nation was attacked more than 10 years ago in the worst attack ever committed on American soil, the entire nation unified together. It was a beautiful thing to see in a moment of terrible darkness. But even then, as the Sean Hannitys of the world made quick and partisan attacks on President Clinton for something that happened well after he left office, I wondered if Republicans were capable of rallying around a president in times of national tragedy if the president was from across the aisle.

U.S. Rep. Allen West answered that question in a tragically predictable way when he turned the Libyan attack on the anniversary of 9-11 into a chance to assault the president. Here is the bulk of West's statement on the Libya tragedy, made not through his campaign arm but sent out as his official statement as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives:

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Americans need to question whether the deaths of these innocent patriots could have been avoided. The Obama Administration touted the Arab Spring as an awakening of freedom, which we now see is a nightmare of Islamism.

Even more concerning, is the initial response to these attacks last night from the embassy officials of the Obama Administration was to apologize for a Facebook video that supposedly hurt Muslim feelings.  President Obama's policy of appeasement towards the Islamic world has manifested itself into a specter of unconscionable hatred.

How anyone can believe this President is strong on national security and foreign policy is beyond my comprehension.  President Obama has clearly surpassed former President Jimmy Carter and his actions during the Iranian Embassy crisis as the weakest and most ineffective person to ever occupy the White House.
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Understand, readers, that this is more than half of West's statement. To blame Obama, not even the Islamic extremists responsible for the attack and whom West has made a career of blaming for everything.

So much is wrong with this statement. Rejecting the Arab Spring, and in it the very concept of freedom itself, West sides squarely with violent dictators who have turned the Middle East into a garden for violence. But again, such extremism comes as no surprise from a man who first came to national prominence using thug violence and intimidation as a way to supposedly keep the peace.

National debate and conversation should not shut down because of tragedies. But it is stunning that a party who so loudly has shouted for the need for America to speak strongly and with one voice when it comes to international incidences such as this, it is disgraceful for men like West to use the megaphone of public office to critique American leadership with such wicked and hate-filled rhetoric. Allen West didn't criticize the president today, he criticized America.

What this all the sadder is that West is speaking in the same misguided tones as the current standard-bearer of his party, but just as sensible foreign policy experts on the Republican side have critiqued Romney for his ill-timed words, they should also condemn West.

Don't misread this. West has the right to disagree with the president on all matters, including those related to foreign policy. But to use the Libyan attack as a chance to score cheap political points against the White House is shameful. And West should receive nothing but shame for doing so.

Chain Gang Charlie Turns Whip On GOP

The speech from Charlie Crist on Thursday night was an impressive lead-in on the DNC's big night. Florida's ex-governor went on the offensive against a party as offended by his moderation as President Obama's left-of-centerness.

The full transcript is on the Tallahassee Democrat's site. My favorite line?

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I look around Florida, and I see a state bursting with diversity and opportunity, a state that looks like America’s future. When I look at the Republican ticket today, I see two candidates who would break the fundamental promise of Medicare and Social Security, and cut investments in our middle class which are so important to our economic recovery.
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Of course, Crist had many positive notes as well, and some nice inside jokes for those who watched a polite embrace of the president during a visit to Florida result in the end of his political career. But this message was more than just a thumbing of the nose at the extremists in his party who drove him from his seat of power. It was a careful, strategic speech set on making sure Obama wins Florida this Fall.

And a reminder to those especially naive people who see this race as leaning toward the GOP, Florida is enough to cinch this thing for Obama, and even in advance of the president's speech, Obama has been leading in Florida for most of 2012.

But this blog is focused on Florida politics, and there is a reason I am focusing on Crist tonight, not Obama. The real question of this speech for me is not whether it will help Obama win (it will, but Obama is winning anyway). It is whether Charlie Crist is positioning himself truly and honestly as a Democratic politician for the future.

On that lines, it seems to me Crist is still straining hard to appease a batch of Republicans who wouldn't give him the time of day. He cited the governing prowess of Reagan as if it existed, and he still made sure to leave ideological daylight between himself and the president he is endorsing.

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I’ll be honest with you, I don’t agree with President Obama about everything. But I’ve gotten to know him, I’ve worked with him, and the choice is crystal clear. 
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Maybe I'm sensitive, but that felt a little back-handed. And it was less than I hoped for. Perhaps it should just be read as an appeal to those voters who dislike Obama's more liberal leanings whom Crist would like casting pragmatic votes for the president.

But this was less than I hoped for. I had hoped Crist would come out tonight and declare as a Democrat. If Crist is genuinely thinking of running for governor in 2014, and especially if he wants to run for Bill Young's House seat, we need to know Crist will be a reliable supporter of some progressive values. Specific progressive values. When will we get that speech? It wasn't here tonight.

Still, all things said, Democrats must stay optimistic about Crist's trajectory. They just can't let him start direct our political agenda, especially if he is intend and directing it in a rightward direction. Let's hope Crist's transformation continues, and that his evolution can be shown as more than political opportunism. The great fear in embracing Crist fully is that he could always bolt the Democratic Party as easily as he did the GOP.

Let's cross our fingers on this one.