Obama courts donors, Hispanics at Miami Beach fundraisers

President Barack Obama made a swing through Miami Beach on Tuesday evening to pursue two re-election campaign goals: raise money from well-heeled donors and lure Hispanic voters — on this night, with a little salsa music.

Both efforts are crucial for Obama, whose campaign has spent the past few days warning that it might be outspent by Republican rival Mitt Romney and aggressively courting Hispanic voters who could decide the election in swing states, including Florida.

Obama appeared at the Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater after pop star Marc Anthony, who sang with a 16-piece band for the crowd of about 2,300 before the president made his entrance, without the singer.

Obama spoke for about 35 minutes, framing the election not as a report card on his first term but as a choice of ideologies on how to heal the fractured economy.

“We understand how much work we have left, but the debate in this election is not whether we need to do better,” he said. “The debate in this election…is about how do we do better.”

He also gave a shout-out to the NBA champions Miami Heat, saying, “You guys earned it.”

More here.

Documents show South Florida gets modest share of incentive grants

Lisa McKerracher might set up a spinal-cord lab in Miami, or she might set it up in Massachusetts. Florida will pay her $83,000 to pick the Sunshine State.

“I’m not sure this is where I need to be,” McKerracher said from her temporary office in Dania Beach. “I’m going up to Boston in two weeks to look at space.”

McKerracher’s quandary captures the high and low stakes involved as Florida uses tax dollars to woo companies that may add jobs in the state. In the last two years, Florida’s economic-development agency pledged about $155 million in rewards for companies planning to add jobs in the state either with new locations or expanding their current ones.

BioAxone Biosciences, McKerracher’s fledgling company, hopes to create a new drug for paralysis victims, making it the kind of research firm South Florida pines for as it tries to move its economy away from depending on tourism and real estate. But McKerracher only plans on hiring 12 people tops for a small lab at the University of Miami’s new commercial research building, representing a tiny win for a region that has lost 134,000 jobs in the recession.

South Florida relied on modest deals like McKerracher’s for the nearly $12 million in pledges from Enterprise Florida, with smaller counties receiving larger grants. Of the 20 largest Enterprise grants since 2011, none were in Broward or Miami-Dade. The biggest was April’s $14 million pledge to Embraer Aircraft in Brevard for a new facility designed to add 650 jobs.

The largest payout in South Florida went to Saveology.com, an online discount site slated to get $1.5 million for moving from Fort Lauderdale to a larger headquarters in Margate. The relocation includes plans for 750 new employees, and prevented the company from accepting offers from other suitors, including San Francisco, said Bob Swindell, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, Broward’s economic development agency.

The incentive numbers were revealed late last week when an official from Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity inadvertently released a confidential database in responding to a public-records request from Integrity Florida, a nonprofit research group in Tallahassee focused on ethics reform. The database showed some pending offers that otherwise would have remained secret. South Florida’s list mostly involved companies already in the area, or moves that had been made public.

Story here by Doug Hanks.

Challenges ahead for new Florida surgeon general Armstrong

TALLAHASSEE — The state's new surgeon general says he has no delusions about the tough job before him.

Dr. John Armstrong leads an agency in transition, some even say turmoil. The Department of Health is in the middle of a massive reorganization and downsizing, and some public health advocates have criticized the changes. A long list of top department officials have resigned or been forced out.

Armstrong, hired away from the University of South Florida, is the second surgeon general since Gov. Rick Scott took office 18 months ago.

It's his turn to figure out how to navigate the state's rocky political waters.

"I'm a realist, and so, candidly, there was really no secret that our Department of Health had been under a magnifying glass for the past two legislative sessions," the 49-year-old said. "And the way I think about it is that if you're under a magnifying glass on a hot Florida day, not only can people see your issues, you also can feel the heat."

Read more here.

Video: Marco Rubio on The Daily Show

Sen. Marco Rubio was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. The first clip aired on TV; two more clips are online only (click on jump for video)

 

 

 

 

 - Alex Leary, Tampa Bay Times

President Obama calls Gov. Rick Scott, offers Tropical Storm Debby help

The White House says that this morning, President Barack Obama called Florida Gov. Rick Scott to "ensure the state had no unmet needs as the governor and his team continue to respond to extreme weather and flooding as a result of Tropical Storm Debby."

The President "expressed his condolences for the loss of life as well as the extensive damage to homes in Florida as a result of the storm," the White House said. He also reiterated that his administration, through FEMA, would remain in close contact with the state as they continued to respond to this event and "stood ready to provide additional assistance if necessary."

At the request of the State, a FEMA liaison officer is onsite at the Florida state emergency operations center to support state response efforts as needed, the White House said.

The White House said the president also asked Scott to continue to identify any additional support his administration could provide, and told the governor that "his thoughts and prayers are with the citizens of Florida and the emergency response officials at this difficult time."