Opinion

Rubio's Dubious Expenses Demonstrate Attitude of Entitlement                    

St. Petersburg Times editorial

ST. PETERSBURG -- Why should a powerful state legislator use political contributions to shop at the neighborhood wine shop, visit a tony Miami barbershop and repair the family minivan? That is the question former House Speaker Marco Rubio should be answering rather than whining about how his profligate spending became public. The Republican U.S. Senate candidate's defense of his use of a political party credit card for private expenses reflects a sense of entitlement that is all too pervasive among elected officials in Tallahassee.

It is becoming increasingly clear why the Republican Party of Florida is still resisting calls even from within its own ranks to release statements for the American Express credit cards it distributed to its top leaders until last year. While state law requires the statements to be part of a political party's quarterly finance reports, an indefensible 2005 ruling by state elections officials enables the parties to shield them continue

More media coverage on Marco Rubio

 

Rubio's Senate Run Puts Spotlight On FIU Ties

Taxpayers subsidize Rubio's job at a state-funded university.

MIAMI — Florida International University leaders were eager for one of their hometown legislators to become speaker of the House, and Marco Rubio delivered.

"We had a great year," FIU's lobbyist said of millions in new funding in 2007, crediting Rubio and the Miami-Dade delegation.

The following year, as term limits forced Rubio to exit the Legislature and contemplate his next political move, FIU offered him a $69,000, part-time job that was never publicly advertised

Senate run puts Rubio's ties to FIU under scrutiny/St. Petersburg Times

Photo: Marco Rubio/ Photo by FrontPageFlorida.com

 

Opinion

Crist Will Beat the Democrats in November

By Howard Troxler

Marco Rubio is beating Gov. Charlie Crist in the latest poll.

In other news, the Jets were beating the Colts 17-6 for a while on Sunday. The Colts won the game.

Sure, Rubio is a threat to Crist in the Republican side of the race to be Florida's next U.S. senator.

Rubio is red-hot. He is dynamic. He is charming. He is loquacious. He is the darling of conservatives. He has rocketed into contention.

Still …continue

 Rubio has to beat history as well/Howard Troxler/St.Petersburg Times

 

 

 A Look At The Foreclosure Crisis

TAMPA -- A simple narrative is often used to characterize the foreclosure crisis at the heart of America's Great Recession: While banks are at fault for approving risky loans, people who lived in the homes are as much to blame. Vanity Fair magazine calls American homeowners "infantile'' for living beyond their means. Financial pundits criticize them for splurging on swimming pools and three-car garages. A Treasury secretary takes his shot, accusing home buyers of signing mortgages they could never afford.

But a St. Petersburg Times analysis of thousands of foreclosures in Hillsborough County, which has one of the highest default rates in Florida, shows individual homeowners are getting too much of the blame.

The truth is that real estate speculators and revenue-hungry local governments bear just as much of the responsibility — and maybe more — for the collapse in the housing market.

Foreclosure crisis caused by investors/St. Petersburg Times

 

Opinion

Winning the 'Race to the Top'

 

By  Charlie Crist  and Eric J. Smith

TALLAHASSEE -- This year presents each of us new opportunities to build a better tomorrow for families, communities and our state. One such opportunity is the “Race to the Top,” where states compete for billions of federal education dollars. Florida’s past education reform efforts have positioned us to succeed in this competition and further increase student achievement, teacher effectiveness and the talent pool of our graduates and workforce.

Victory in this competition could mean hundreds of millions of dollars for Florida’s students and teachers, without the burden of increased taxes. We simply cannot turn our backs on an opportunity with goals so closely aligned with Florida’s own long-range goals.

“Race to the Top” has the power to positively impact our state and every single Floridian if we are successful. Florida’s 2.6 million students, parents, and grandparents will reap the benefits of a better education system. Teachers and administrators will experience a reinvigorated teaching profession that supports and rewards its most effective educators. Business owners will tap into an even more talented workforce that will yield new business opportunities to continue diversifying our economy. Most importantly, every community will see the lasting benefits of putting the success of children first. continue

 

 

Opinion

Look Ahead With Stoicism—and Optimism

The accomplished and sophisticated attorney was asked what attitude he was bringing to the new year. "Stoicism and mindless optimism," he laughed, which sounded just about right. He meant it, he said, about the stoicism. He had immersed himself in that rough old philosophy after 9/11, and had come to adopt it as his own. But he meant it about the optimism, too: You never know, things get better, begin with good cheer, maintain your equilibrium, don't lose your peace.

We're at the clean start of a new decade, and it wouldn't be bad if the national watchwords were repair, rebuild and return, with an eye toward what is now our central project, though we haven't fully noticed, and that is keeping our country together. So many forces exist to tear us apart. We have to do what we can to hold together in the long run.

We have been through a hard 10 years. They were not, as some have argued, the worst ever, or even the worst of the past century. The '30s started with the Great Depression, featured the rise of Hitler and Stalin, and ended with World War II. That's a bad decade for you. In the '60s we saw our leaders assassinated, our great cities hit by riots, a war tear our country apart.

Look ahead with stoicism and optimism/Wall St. Journal/Peggy Noonan

 

 

If GOP wins big in 2010, credit California's Rep. McCarthy

WASHINGTON — With visions of a Republican majority dancing in his head, California U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy is driving the back roads of America these days, looking for fresh faces to represent his party in 2010.

"I believe this will be a wave election," McCarthy said. "This will be a national election."

To regain control of the House of Representatives, Republicans must pick up 41 seats. If they win big in the House next year, it will be at least partly because the party put McCarthy in charge of its recruiting efforts.

It's the latest high-profile assignment for McCarthy, who serves as his party's chief deputy whip. Earlier this month, he was chosen in a poll of congressional insiders as the Republican member of Congress with the "brightest political future."

If GOP wins big in 2010, credit California;s Rep. McCarthy/McClatchy Newspapers

 Dick Greco Pondering Another Run For Mayor of Tampa

Greco was a popular mayor, serving from 1967 to 1974 and again from 1995 to 2003.

TAMPA — When a local radio station launched a news talk show last week, host Malcolm Teasdale invited former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco as his guest of honor.

After shaking dozens of hands, hugging men, kissing and complimenting women and munching on some pulled pork, Greco took a flute of champagne into the studio where Teasdale introduced him as "a hero to many of us. A gentleman who's shaped this community."

Dick Greco pondering another run for Tampa mayor.

 

 

Democrats Hoping Dreams Can Come True

 

It's no suprise that the party has plenty to wish for.

 

By JOHN KENNEDY

THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

 

LAKE BUENA VISTA -- Some 3,000 Florida Democrats gathered Saturday for a state party conference at Disney World -- a place where the signs say `dreams come true.’

   

A decade after Florida’s last Democratic governor and even longer since the party held a majority in the state House, Senate or congressional delegation, it’s no surprise that the party has plenty to wish for in the pivotal election year ahead.

 

“Our goal here this weekend is simple: To start the process of taking back our state in 2010,” Democratic Chair Karen Thurman told the crowd.

 

Throughout the day, Democratic officials steadily pointed to signs of renewed life in a party which may have reached its low-point after the 2004 elections, when presidential nominee John Kerry badly lost Florida and House Democrats slid to a scant 36 seats in the 120-member House.

 

Since then, Democratic Party registration has grown – to a 700,000-voter edge over Florida Republicans, helped in part by enthusiasm for Barack Obama’s candidacy last fall.  No statewide Republican incumbents are seeking re-election next year, and term-limits in the House and Senate also are pushing far more Republicans out of office.

 

Thurman said that since 2004, Florida voters have been on the party’s side.

 

“Well, if I had told you that over the next four years, we'd send to Washington three more Democrats, add nine new Democrats to the Legislature, elect our first new Cabinet member in Alex Sink and deliver Florida's 27 electoral votes for Barack Obama, the pundits would have said we were crazy,” Thurman said.

 

But amid the chest-thumping, it’s clear the party has a long way to go.

 

Democrats are outnumbered 76-44 in the House and 26-14 in the Senate, and while three Agriculture Commissioner candidates and a pair of Democratic contenders for Attorney General were working the crowd Saturday, no candidate has emerged for the post held by Sink, now a candidate for governor.

 

Democratic chances in Florida also may be shaped greatly by how Obama fares in his first two years in the White House, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson conceded. In meetings with U.S. Senate Democrats, Nelson told the crowd the president has said, “My entire presidency will ride on the passage of health care reform.”

 

In turn, Nelson said success adopting a health care overhaul would prove “helpful to folks like Alex” running in Florida. But Obama’s health care initiative continues to be buffeted in Congress and his once sky-high popularity in Florida has flagged in recent weeks, polls show.

 

“I think it’s clear that many Floridians are anxious about the kind of change the president is looking to bring to America,” Katie Gordon, a Florida Republican Party spokeswoman, said Saturday. “If they would actually listen to what the people of Florida are saying, Democrats might not be so optimistic about next year.”

 

But several workshop sessions at the conference – which ends Sunday – tried to plot a course for next year.

 

Hispanic voters are emerging as a powerful and growing bloc within the party – especially across the crucial Interstate-4 section, where voters from Tampa to Daytona  Beach are seen as key to victory for any statewide candidate.

 

Fourteen percent of eligible voters in Florida are Hispanic – and 56 percent of them voted for George W. Bush in the 2004 contest, only to turn 57 percent in favor of Obama four years later.

 

Similarly, in 2004, 414,000 Hispanics were registered Republicans, compared with 369,000 allied with the Democratic Party. Again, last year those numbers flip-flopped – with 513,000 Hispanics now registered Democratic, compared with 445,000 Hispanic Republicans, party analysts said.

 

“The Hispanic vote is what controls Central Florida and Central Florida controls Florida,” said James Auffant, an Orlando-area consultant and party activist.

 

U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, also urged Democrats to continue a focus on voter-registration and expand the use of absentee ballots – which he said helped him defeat four-term Republican incumbent Ric Keller last fall.

 

Given Florida demographics, “There are few places in the state that are so red that we can’t turn them blue,” Grayson said.

 

Critical for Democrats, too, are the FairDistrictsFlorida ballot initiatives, whose supporters were circulating petitions at Saturday’s conference. The ballot measures would revamp the legislative and congressional redistricting process, blocking districts from being drawn for political considerations or protecting incumbents.

 

Democrats see the measures, if approved by voters, as likely breaking Republican control of the Legislature and congressional delegation, giving Democrats a chance to regain power when lines are redrawn in 2012, following the next U.S. Census.

 

Nelson tried to emphasize the broad reach of the ballot proposals Saturday, telling Democrats, “You’ve got to play this one for keeps.”

 

 

Opinion

Sugar Deal Sound Package

Today, a decision in a West Palm Beach courthouse could determine how the state of Florida moves forward with obtaining land that many believe is vital to sustain the environment and the economy.

The acquisition of U.S. Sugar Corp. property by the state has been viewed favorably by most conservation-minded organizations, yet there has been limited analysis of the financial benefits of the transaction. There is no better opportunity to apply "eco-economics" theories and engage in an objective cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate how this acquisition makes perfect sense.

The estimated cost to acquire the initial 73,000 acres is $536 million. While it is a significant investment, it pales in magnitude to the economic value of eco-tourism and sport fishing in the Everglades region.

According to a recently published report on the economic value of the Everglades by Florida Atlantic University, the total annual impact of ecotourism in 2007 was $1.8 billion. In addition, the total annual expenditures of sport fishing in Florida are estimated to be between $3.4 billion and $5.6 billion.

Sugar deal sound package/Tampa Tribune/Andrew D.W. Hill