AN INTERESTING THEORY. Wondering why the bland Toni Jennings beat out John Delaney for the Lt. Gov. spot? Ron Littlepage has an interesting theory on that: it's because Buddy Dyyer smoked his Republican opposition in the maor's race. Really, and it goes like this: " [1] Dyer's lopsided victory sent shivers through the Republican Party hierarchy. [2] Florida is critical to President Bush's re-election hopes in 2004 and Central Florida is critical to winning Florida. [3] A strong case can be made that it was Dyer's overwhelming victory in what had been predicted to be a close race that caused Delaney's star to begin to fade. [4] North Florida, and especially Duval County, is likely to be solidly in President Bush's camp in 2004. The same can't be said for Orlando and Orange County, which voted for Al Gore in 2000 and which saw a surge in registered Democrats the next year. [5] Under this scenario, strategists urged Bush to choose a lieutenant governor from Central Florida to counteract Dyer's influence. Orlando's Jennings became that choice even though Delaney is closer to Bush ideologically."
On a related note, Bill Marchman writes that "Florida Democrats, who haven't had much to exult about lately, have found something: mayoral races. That's not something political parties usually crow over. Most mayoral elections are nonpartisan and aren't supposed to carry partisan spoils. But an election is an election, and a mayor's office is a position of power that can serve as a base for future races. Recently, Democrats have won races in Orlando and Tallahassee. Both candidates in Tampa's March 25 runoff election, Frank Sanchez and Pam Iorio, are Democrats. And Democrats have good shots at the mayoral races in West Palm Beach on Tuesday and Jacksonville next month." We disagree with Marchman's suggestion that these races do not have a partisan tinge - it has become common, particularly for Repubs, to run sub silentio partisan campaigns in nominally nonpartisan races; indeed, Pete Barr, in making it to the runoff against Buddy Dyer, sent mailers out to registered Repubs reminding them that he was a repub, and the true conservative, etc.
Please read Bill Cotterell''s column today, "Psst, Florida taxes aren't too high; pass it on". In addition to exposing the head game the repubs play on taxes, he suggests that OPPAGA (see our March 8 entry about OPPAGA) must have a death wish for reporting the following: "Floridians are not overtaxed. Nor are there too many government workers, compared with other states. Florida had the second-lowest number of state and local public employees per 1,000 residents among the 12 largest states in fiscal year 2000-01," said the OPPAGA report. With 49 public employees per 1,000 residents, the government work force was 5.3 employees below the national average and 4.3 below that of large states."
According to the Sarasota Herald, "Jeb Bush's desired legacy as a 'compassionate conservative' governor will end up a few pages short if he's allowed to complete a raid on trust funds set up a decade ago to provide money for affordable housing programs." 6:09 AM
[Go to current Florida Politics site (no popup ads)]