Our Tampa Bay Times friends note the names of seven headliners at the Republican National Convention in Tampa: Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Sen. John McCain, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.
The keynote speaker and others will be named closer to the Aug. 27-30 event, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said in announcing the headliners, whom he called "some of our party's brightest stars, who have governed and led effectively and admirably in their respective roles."
It's a no-brainer that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a vice-presidential shortlister, is in contention for the keynoter post. The GOP faithful love him, he's Hispanic, he's a solid speaker and this is his home state. But who knows? Romney might not pick him as a running mate (which is just fine for fearful Democrats) and they might want to downplay Rubio. Of course, the opposite could be true.
Though Republican Mitt Romney's outreach to Jewish voters won't be easy, that's not reason he shouldn't try. Today, his campaign announced a new TV aimed squarely at President Obama for failing to visit Israel while president "and refuses to recognize Jerusalem as its capital."
Both points are sore spots for many Jewish voters who spoke to The Miami Herald last week, so at the least Romney's ad could depress their vote if it doesn't attract them to his candidacy.
Obama folks have noted that Presidents Bush and Nixon didn't visit Israel until their second terms and that Reagan never went. White House spokesman and one-time Florida campaign hand Josh Earnest also has called on Romney to clarify what he meant by saying "it's the view of this administration that the capital is something that should be determined in final status negotiations between the parties."
But Obama has some clarifying to do as well. In 2008, he said any peace accord with the Palestinians "must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state with secure, recognized, defensible borders. And Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.” Yet, last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney refused to say what the Capital is.
The Romney campaign refuses to tell us which ads are running in Florida, so we usually don't post them on this Florida blog until it's on air here. That said, it's a safe bet that this "Cherished Relationship" spot is running in Florida, the only battleground state with enough of a Jewish population to make a difference in a presidential election. The ad also plays to Romney's biggest supporter, gambling czar Sheldon Adelson, who attended a Romney fundraiser in Jerusalem and has pledged $100 million to help him win the White House.
CNN notes that Romney's campaign has released another spot as well: "In the second commercial, 'It's Just Not Getting Better,' Romney's campaign focuses on the economy and blames the president for July's job numbers, which came out Friday and revealed an unemployment rate uptick - to 8.3%, from 8.2% last month - as households claimed they lost 195,000 jobs in July. However, the ad does not mention that the economy added 163,000 jobs, far more than in recent months."
Well, all you need is a computer, a telephone and a dummy address. Armed with that, there’s a good chance you can request and vote another person’s absentee ballot.
It’s a felony. It’s not a guaranteed method to cast a fraudulent vote that counts. And it’s unlikely it could happen in big enough numbers to change an election.
But chances are you won’t get caught because it can be done anonymously.
You can thank the Republican-led Legislature for all that.
While other people watch reality shows, a marketing specialist in Michigan who goes by the name “Bcclist” spends time in his yard, calculating Trayvon Martin’s last steps with a tape measure and smartphone stop watch.
He is joined on the Internet by Dave Turner, an Illinois man who had his sons yell in the dark from a distance of 30 feet to see whether he could tell which one cried for help.
Both men are often guided by the work of “Tchoupi,” an engineer with a Ph.D. in physics who has spent countless hours making maps, analyzing witness statements and fleeting headlight patterns in surveillance videos to compute George Zimmerman’s moves the night he killed Trayvon.
The three are among a growing group of people on the Internet so fascinated by the mystery of the killing that captivated the nation that they are out to crack the case themselves. They listen to jailhouse calls, pore over witness statements, study evidentiary documents and measure walking speeds.
For the third time since taking office, Gov. Rick Scott has a new chief of staff to help shape his agenda, steer him through political minefields and bolster his shaky standing with Floridians.
Adam Hollingsworth, 43, is a battle-tested former chief of staff to a Jacksonville mayor, a communications specialist and former executive at CSX Corp. who already has faced several tough tests since taking over July 6.
Embarrassing news reports over school grades, the lieutenant governor and a botched open government website threatened to deepen the governor's already-low approval ratings. In each instance, Hollingsworth worked behind the scenes to contain the damage by reversing course, with Scott's consent.
"He brings a clarity of purpose," said former Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton, who hired Hollingsworth and promoted him to chief of staff. "Someone has got to be the bad guy. He's not afraid to make the hard calls." Story here.
