Florida Political News for 10/12/08

Meet Katherine Harris Version 3.0

Where we once had Katherine, and her successsor Glenda (below) ...

... may we present ...

Secretary of State Katherine Browning:

Kurt wonders: what the heck is all the fuss about?  After all, as the good RPOFer gleefully points out, "The courts have found that our [no-match] law is constitutional".

RPOFers runnin' for cover, "finger-pointing" begins

"John McCain's plunging poll numbers in Florida have top Republicans second-guessing and starting to distance themselves from the campaign." The wheels are coming off the (mythical) mighty RPOFer machine

''There are a lot of folks who have never been in a foxhole before and are clearly nervous,'' said Brian Ballard, a major McCain fundraiser. "There is some finger-pointing going on a little bit too soon.''

Even Gov. Charlie Crist, who helped deliver Florida for McCain during the primary, said he will spend the final weeks before Election Day minding the state's weak economy rather than campaigning for the Arizona senator.

''When I have time to help, I'll try to do that,'' Crist said last week, after he flew around the state with McCain running mate Sarah Palin. Saturday, he skipped a McCain football rally and instead went to Disney World.

Once considered a potential running mate, Crist had pledged to do all he could for McCain and spent several days this summer campaigning for the Republican nominee in and outside Florida. He faults the tough economic times for McCain's difficult time in Florida, where he trails rival Barack Obama by about 5 percentage points in the polls.

No Republican has won the White House in modern times without carrying Florida. The last to lose the state was McCain's former colleague, Sen. Bob Dole, in 1996. Some Republicans say the state party hasn't done enough, while others blame McCain's national campaign.

You know the RPOFers are hiding under the sheets when reporters resort to Roger Stone for a quote. Stone, a "'stone-cold loser'", "hater", "Nixon-era dirty trickster", sexual deviant, as well as

a longtime McCain supporter, said the state party and the national campaign bear almost equal blame.

''This effort lacks coordination and a cooperative spirit and it's showing,'' Stone said. ``But it's more than mechanics. The campaign has no consistent message.''

"Democrats say they expect the race to tighten, despite their cash advantage. And economic problems aside, Republican spending is also lower in Florida than in 2004 because there's no Jeb Bush determined to deliver Florida for his brother."

All of this comes at a time when the party financial reports show that in the last quarter GOP officials claimed $500,000 in credit card expenses and $300,000 for chartered planes.

Jim Greer, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said the party's spending isn't unusual for election time. Greer chartered a private jet last week to appear at a Sarah Palin rally after he was told there was no room on the campaign plane.

That came just after the St. Petersburg Times reported details about a strategy meeting between McCain's Florida staff and GOP officials and Greer was quoted as saying he was just trying ''to make sure everything was done right'' by the McCain campaign.

McCain staffers say the meeting was routine and many Republicans viewed the leak of the meeting as blame-shifting by Greer, especially after he criticized Palin in the New York Times.

Much more here: "Florida Republicans cast blame as McCain trails in polls". See also "How much can Crist do to help McCain?": "As Republican hopes appear to be fading nationally, Gov. Charlie Crist stands out as one of the country’s most popular GOP officials. But it’s not clear how much he can do, or is willing to do, to help presidential candidate John McCain win in Florida."

 

Stop the no-match madness

The Daytona Beach News-Journal editorial board: "Florida could be watching a disaster unfolding in slow motion. To avoid that, Gov. Charlie Crist and Browning have only one viable option: They should suspend enforcement of the No Match, No Vote law until after the Nov. 4 election." "'No Match, No Vote'". Remember,

The law at issue bars any Florida citizen from becoming registered to vote and voting with a regular ballot if the state cannot validate the applicant's driver's license number or the last four digits of the applicant's Social Security number, no matter how much identification the voter brings to the polls on Election Day. The process starts with an attempt to "match" voter information to other government databases, an error-prone exercise that often fails. For example, the Social Security Administration reports a 46% failure rate when trying to match voter registration applications. State officials admitted in a recent challenge to the law, Florida NAACP v. Browning, that typographical errors by election workers are responsible for most of the failures.

If the state cannot match the voter registration records, many eligible voters who submit registration applications before the October 6th deadline to register may not be notified of the matching failure until Election Day, when they appear at the polls to vote. There, they will be forced to cast a provisional ballot, and that provisional ballot will only be counted if the voter submits a photocopy of his or her driver's license or Social Security card within 48 hours after the election, even if they already showed their driver's license at the polls.

Who writes these headlines anyway?

"A poll by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund finds that while Barack Obama overwhelmingly leads McCain in other states with big Hispanic populations — Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada — Florida Hispanics are closely split, with 38 percent backing McCain and 35 percent backing Obama."

The headline to the above passage, "Hispanics snub Obama", is ... well, a bit off the mark. After all, "the numbers in NV, CO, NM, and even FL are well above the 2004 levels of support that Bush received." See "NEW POLLS: NM, NV, CO, FL, Hispanics Crushing McCain".

Latino Protestants

"With election day drawing near, the Rev. Manny Torres has a dilemma."

Torres, pastor of Primera Bautista Iglesia Voz de Salvacion, a bilingual Southern Baptist church in Lakeland, is a Latino Protestant, one of a few religious groups that might hold the key to the election.

"My heart is pointing more to Obama. My church feels the same way," he said. "We're paying so much taxes. And the economy, all these bad loans. People are losing their property. People are disappointed they voted for Bush. He knew the economy was falling apart."

The corridor

"The 132-mile interstate running from Tampa Bay to Daytona Beach cuts through fast-growing cities and neighborhoods flooded with new immigrants, through citrus farms, Disney and the birthplace of American stock car racing. It comprises 40 percent of the Florida's voting population, and also by far its most unpredictable voting bloc." "132 miles of potent political influence".

 

ACORN

"A senior deputy elections supervisor "

in Orange said her office has had problems with "hundreds" of ACORN-submitted forms, and Seminole's Michael Ertel said his office had received about 100 applications with non-matching Social Security numbers. But both seemed to attribute the problems more to sloppiness than intent to defraud.

M.T. go home

"A wayward manatee is headed south after being pulled from frigid waters off Cape Cod in an early morning rescue." "Manatee headed to Fla. after Mass. rescue".

 

Voting to begin

"Secretary of State Kurt Browning told county elections supervisors Friday morning that Florida is in good shape for the start of early voting and the general election."

Registration drives have swelled Florida's voter rolls by more than 800,000 this year through September, with a net advantage going to Democrats.

Final numbers won't be out from the state until next week, but available figures show of those who have registered to vote this year, 360,478 were Democrats, 190,137 were Republican and 253,294 were independent or had no party affiliation.

"Browning: Fla. ready for early voting". Actually,

the net gain for Democrats is even bigger. Including party switchers and voters dropped from the rolls, Democrats netted 415,580 voters through September, compared to the Republican Party of Florida's 169,841. That's a difference of plus-245,739 for the Democrats.

"By the numbers". And get this, Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer,

accuses Democrats of "signing up anybody who has a pulse".

As opposed to who, Jimmy?: Anyone who has a yacht, a Beemer, a kid at Gulliver Prep, or ... you know, the rest of the RPOF base:

"Grab your hoods and your pitch forks and we'll meet at the library for the book burning!"

 

That's sum' real rich pigs (mostly men)

Palin's "appearances in Boca Raton and Naples brought in $1.5-million apiece and a Jacksonville stop netted an estimated $1.2-million, according to Brian Ballard, co-chairman of John McCain's national finance team." "Palin piles up cash for McCain".

 

McCain-Palin "Pre-election victory bash"

"The Republican Party of Florida is so sure of a win for McCain here they've lined up an Oct. 18 pre-election victory bash for the McCain- Sarah Palin ticket at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando. The invite mentions a "special guest speaker." Crist and state GOP chairman Jim Greer will be there, along with congressional and state legislative leaders who might show up." "Is GOP too confident?"

 

Paper ballot mythbuster

Randy Schultz, who never did like paper ballots, addresses as coupla "myths" about paper ballot voting. First:

With paper ballots, if the race is real close, they just count all the ballots by hand and decide the winner, right? Wrong.

Under state law, there's first a machine recount if the margin in any race is 0.5 percentage points or less - say, 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent. All the ballots are fed through special, high-speed counters in the elections office. These machines are different from the ones at early-voting sites and polling places. If, after the machines finish, the margin is 0.25 percentage points or less, there's a hand recount.

So, that's when they look at all the ballots, right? Wrong.

The high-speed machines are designed to separate out invalid ballots: those with more that one choice in a race (overvotes) and those with no choice (undervotes.) Only those ballots are counted by hand. There's your paper trail.

Therefore, if John McCain and Barack Obama are separated by a recount-sized margin, there would be no arguing as there was in 2000 over which counties would hold a recount. All 67 counties would do a machine recount. That would make things easier. But if there had to be a hand recount, forget the idea of human eyes on every ballot.

Second:

With touch screens, you could "vote" at numerous spots in each polling place. With optical scans, you can't vote until you put the ballot though the scanner. There will be lines waiting to cast ballots, and then lines waiting to insert the ballot. There will be no more than two scanners per precinct. Don't vote absentee; the error rate is much higher. But this may be a good year to vote early.

"Not every paper ballot counted".

 

Young

"Politically, he said, the smartest course of action for members of Congress was to vote against the bailout." "Young stands by his 'no' vote on bailout".

 

Florida's would-be "president of Cuba"

Lincoln Diaz-Balart is

facing the first real challenge to his seat from a populist Democrat who says today's voters are more worried about home foreclosures than Cuba policy, Diaz-Balart is campaigning aggressively and raising more money than ever.

As of Aug. 6, he had raised $1.7 million, about a quarter of it from law firms, real-estate interests and political action committees with interests in foreign and defense policy, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group in Washington.

Yet, even some Republicans in his district say Diaz-Balart remains a bit of a mystery.

''Most people don't know what it is he's been doing all the time he's been up there,'' said Robert Bueso, a Republican and treasurer of the East Kendall Homeowners Organization. "We do know his opinion on Cuba.''

The acknowledged a mere"'niche player'": and "to his colleagues and constituents, he is known, first and foremost, for his crusade against Castro's Cuba.' Critics say little has changed nearly a decade later." Indeed,

Diaz-Balart's focus has prompted accusations that, as the premier defender of U.S.-Cuba policy, he views his seat in Congress as a stepping stone to the job he really wants: president of Cuba.

"House race: Diaz-Balart noted for stand on Cuba".