Florida's Aug. 26 primary (as pathetic as the turnout
was) set the stage for some high stakes races in the Nov. 4 election. Here are six questions I have about those contests.
Who is the worst, dirty, baby stealing scoundrel, Charlie Crist or Rick Scott?
The campaign ads have been 99 percent negative and we’ve
only begun to see the tens of millions of political dollars hit the airwaves. Medicare
fraudster! Job killer! Climate change denier! Flip flopper! It would be nice to
hear more about their stances on the issues and their plans to address the
state’s biggest problems. But hey, that wouldn’t be any fun.
What will happen first, the Miami Dolphins make the playoffs
or Rick Scott directly answers a question from a reporter?
Google “Rick Scott evades questions” or “Rick Scott dodges
questions” and you’ll get hundreds of thousands of hits, including this video on MSNBC. To use an X-Men analogy, he’s the Nightcrawler of answering
questions. Poof, he’s gone. When he does reply, it’s often like he’s reciting a
script and he’s ignoring the question.
Could Crist be hauled in for an embarrassing deposition
during campaign season?
Florida’s lawsuit against Digital Domain and the executives
of the failed company aims to recover $20 million in taxpayer dollars, but
Scott wouldn’t mind if it puts Crist in hot water as well. It was Crist’s
bright idea when he was governor to award this unproven company taxpayer dollars up front when its finances were a mess. It’s likely Crist will be called for a deposition, and it would
sure be a shame if that got picked up by the press.
Will stoners light up the ballot boxes?
The medical marijuana amendment has strong support in opinion polling, but the 60 percent vote it needs for passage is a high bar, pardon my
pun. This measure might increase youth and liberal turnout, which is exactly
what Crist and the Democrats are hoping for. Forget oranges, Florida is about
to have a new cash crop.
Are gay marriage opponents in for a rude awakening?
Few issues have seen a rapid swing in public opinion like
gay marriage, with polls showing that a majority of Floridians now support it.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has aggressively battled every lawsuit seeking to legalize same-sex unions and she’s proud of it,
issuing all kinds of press releases touting her stance. Democratic opponent
George Sheldon would have the state drop its fight and support these unions. If supporters of same-sex
marriage take out their frustrations on Bondi at the ballot box, she could be
in trouble. Still, she has a huge fundraising advantage.
Will incumbent members of Congress be punished for their
slacker ways?
If you had any employee as unproductive as this Congress has
been, I bet you’d fire their asses. In a world full of crises in need of urgent
action, Congress bickers and stalls and bickers some more. Often times, people
blame representatives in other districts, not their hometown hero. Yet, if this
is a job evaluation based on “what have you done for me lately”, I see a lot of
zeros on the board.
I’d ask a question about the races in the Florida
Legislature, but those districts are gerrymandered so bad that most "contests" aren’t
competitive. That last sentence could have been written 100 years ago.
