Boehner on RNC platform: never mind

House Speaker John Boehner met with reporters Monday, trying hard to remind everyone that the economy matters most.

He was asked about the convention, and whether 4 day conventions were a thing of the past. Republicans postponed major business scheduled for Monday because Tropical Storm Isaac threatened the region.

"Four day conventions for the future make a lot of sense," Boehner, R-Ohio,said.

He defended the party's positions on women's issues, saying, "there never was a war on women,'' and women, like men, care most about the economy.

He had praised for vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, recalling how Ryan worked for him 22 years ago when Ryan was a college student and worked in the campaign.

But Boehner's message, over and over, was that the convention and the election are about the economy. Don't even worry about what's in the platform, he said.

"Have you ever met anybody who's read the party platform?" Boehner asked. "I haven't meet anybody."

-- David Lightman

Defeated Miami-Dade commission chairman, property appraiser sue to contest election results

Citing an ongoing absentee-ballot fraud investigation in Hialeah, two Miami-Dade politicians who lost their election contests two weeks ago say they have sued to challenge the results.

County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, who ran for Miami-Dade mayor, and Property Appraiser Pedro J. Garcia, defeated in his reelection bid, filed parallel lawsuits Friday asking the courts to throw out the absentee votes in their countywide races, according to a lawyer representing both men.

Without the absentees, the results would rely only on ballots cast during early voting and on Election Day. In that case, Martinez would have narrowly made it to a runoff against Mayor Carlos Gimenez. Garcia would have defeated state Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera.

Prosecutors have charged two suspected Hialeah ballot brokers known as boleteros, Deisy Cabrera and Sergio Robaina, with voter fraud. Cabrera allegedly forged the ballot signature of a terminally ill woman in a nursing home; Robaina allegedly filled out two absentee ballots with his own candidate choices, not those of the voters involved.

As part of the investigation, authorities have identified 195 absentee ballots collected by Cabrera, Robaina or other brokers. Six of those ballots were seized by investigators and not counted in the Aug. 14 election. The county’s three-person canvassing board rejected four other ballots collectedby the brokers because the signatures on the ballot envelopes did not match voter signatures on file. In an interview Monday, Martinez cited the Hialeah arrests as enough evidence to contest the election.

More here.

A Charlie Crist challenge to Rick Scott in 2014: Democratic nightmare or gift?

If former Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement of Barack Obama did anything, it fired the first official salvo in the ever-present fight for the independent voter in Florida between Mitt Romney and the president in 2012.

(Independent voters traditionally determine elections in the nation's largest swing state and, as Florida Republican Party chairman Lenny Curry confirmed on Monday, “Mitt Romney cannot win the presidency without Florida.")

But the chatter among Republicans at the RNC today is that Crist's endorsement is a sign of a more interesting fight to come -- from their vantage point -- in 2014.

That would be the fight between the potential candidacy of Alex Sink, the Democrat and former CFO who lost to Republican Rick Scott in 2010 by a narrow 62,000 votes, and Charlie Crist for the Democratic nomination in 2014. Or between Crist and whichever other Democratic alternative may be named. (Among them: Fort Lauerdale Mayor Jack Seiler, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former state Sen. Rod Smith and state Sen. Nan Rich.)

The mere suggestion that Crist would switch from no-party affiliation to the Democratic Party already is stirring up trouble in Democratic circles. "Some party leaders who are encouraging him and others who are very much against it,'' one party insider told us.

Former state Sen. Dan Gelber believes Crist may help Obama with Republicans and independent voters who believe "the GOP has become simply too extreme." But he's not ready to embrace the idea of Crist as a candidate.

"I think party insiders are over thinking the prospect of Crist embracing Democrats and vice versa,'' Gelber said. "The Republican reaction was obviously an over reaction as they acted like Crist had committed a savage crime with his endorsement.  It's a long way to 2014, but Scott should be worried because lots of right-thinking Republicans and Independents feel totally at sea with his party and policies. Crist's endorsement is simply another proof point of that sentiment."

Down with women, Hispanics, RNC’s Priebus talks ground game, ‘bragging’ strategy

The latest CNN/Time Florida poll shows President Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney 50-46%, a Democrat lead bolstered by a 54-42% edge among women and a big lead among minorities. That’s on top of a Quinnipiac Florida poll that showed Obama leading Romney 49-46%, in which Hispanics favor the Democrat over the Republican 61-31%.

Yet the Republican National Committee’s big speakers, by and large, are Hispanics and women. What gives?

“We’ve had a lot of success with Hispanic candidates,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus. “We’ve done a lousy job of bragging on it. And we need to do a better job of bragging on the successes that we’ve had….”

“You have to at least give us that right now in 2012, our topline messaging, we’re in a much better place today than we were four years ago. We know that… We know that we’re in a much better place. We know that we’ve got better messengers in our party today than in 2008 – whether it be (Florida Sen.) Marco (Rubio), (New Mexico Gov.) Susana Martinez, (Nevada Gov.) Sandoval. One of the guys we don’t brag up enough: (Gov.) Luis Fortuño in Puerto Rico. So we’ve got better message,  better messengers…”

Poll: Mitt Romney badly trails President Obama among Hispanic voters

Latino Decisions has teamed up with impreMedia to launch a weekly tracking poll of registered Latino voters voters nationwide -- and its first poll released Monday was not good news for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Romney trails President Barack Obama by nearly 40 percentage points, the poll shows. Obama leads Romney, 65-26 percent. Undecided: 9 percent.

Number polled: 300 registered Latino voters. Margin of error: 5.6 percentage points. 

Only 20 percent said they were "certain" to vote for Romney, while 55 percent said they were "certain" to vote for Obama.

Said Gabriel Sanchez, research director at Latino Decisions: "As we have seen in recent months and confirm in this survey, Romney has many challenges in making significant inroads with the Latino vote."

Topping the list of "most important" issues facing the Latino community were the economy and jobs (53 percent), immigration and the DREAM Act (51 percent) and education (18 percent)

One other takeaway from the poll is favorability ratings. Obama's are high with 74 percent, while Romney's are low with 27 percent.

Last week, a poll of Latino voters by NBC/WSJ/Telemundo found similar results: Obama (61 percent), Romney (27 percent)

For some historical perspective, former President George W. Bush got as much as 35 percent of the Latino vote in 2000 and as high as 44 percent in 2004, according to exit polls. John McCain got 31 percent in 2008. 

Latino Decisions and  impreMedia weekly poll will be released each Monday from now until the Nov. 6 election.

See full poll results here

Read analysis by impreMedia's Pilar Marrero here

 

 

CNN/Time: Obama 50%, Romney 46% thanks to huge gender, minority gap

A new Time/CNN/Opinion Research poll in Florida shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney by four points among likely voters, 50% to 46%.

"Obama's edge in Florida is bolstered by women voters, among whom he's beating Romney, 54%-42%, and by nonwhite voters, with whom he boasts a 70%-29% advantage. There are signs the incumbent is stitching together the same demographic coalitions that helped him capture Florida's 29 electoral votes four years ago."

Romney leads among voters 65+ 51 percent to 45 percent, and Obama leads among women 54 percent to 42 percent and among independents 46 percent to 45 percent. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percent.

 

Posted by Adam C. Smith

GOP strategist Karl Rove shares elections insight

TAMPA -- Karl Rove has made the trasition from Republican operative to political analyst, but his biting humor and sharp elbows style haven’t gone anywhere. Weighing in on the 2012 presidential race Monday morning, he had high praise for presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney and criticized President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

Rove said Obama’s approach leaves him “completely mystified” and the president has allowed the campaign to dominate too much of his time.

“This has not been a campaign in which it has been, 'Look at my record, I’m proud of my record and here is my vision for a second term,’ “ Rove told a capacity crowd at the launch of the POLITICO Convention Playbook Breakfast series.

But Rove has also been “mystified” by Romney’s response to questions about whether he pays his fair share of taxes. Romney can choose not to release additional tax returns, Rove said, but he should paint Obama’s attacks as about politics and not transparency.

Some absentee voters in Hialeah probe insist they did not hand their ballots to suspected brokers

Olga Roqueta, 77, and her husband say they filled out their absentee ballots without help and put them in their mailbox weeks before the Aug. 14 election.

Alberto Rodríguez, 42, said Anamary Pedrosa, a former employee in Miami-Dade County Commissioner Esteban Bovo’s Hialeah office, passed by his house to pick up his ballot.

Doris Martínez, 83, said she and her husband gave their sealed ballots to their old friend Sergio Robaina.

Roqueta, Rodríguez and Martínez are among the 164 voters whose ballots are the focus of an ongoing voter-fraud investigation that has led to the arrest of Robaina and inquiries about an additional half-dozen possible ballot-brokers, or boleteros.

The stories of these voters — mostly elderly Hispanics who vote Republican — offer a glimpse into theboletero operations that depend on networks of friends and family, and are an entrenched part of Hialeah politics. In many cases, their stories conflict with the facts offered by authorities.

Pedrosa, who does not face charges, told authorities that Robaina and others gave her the ballots in Bovo’s office. She then dropped them into a blue mailbox outside the post office at 2200 NW 72nd Ave., where a postal employee discovered them July 26.

More than 60 voters whose ballots were part of this batch told reporters they could not explain how they got there.

“I voted, signed and put them in my mailbox,” said Roqueta, one of 14 voters who told a similar story.

Sources close to the investigation say the ballots all appeared to have been deposited together, which was why the postal agent who found them alerted police.

Close to three dozen voters told reporters they mailed their ballots themselves.

More from Melissa Sanchez, Enrique Flor and Alfonso Chardy here.

No surprise news of the day: Charlie Crist secures DNC speaking spot

Charlie Crist, who yesterday endorsed Barack Obama, will speak at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next week.

"The Democratic convention will be about bringing people together to continue the progress we've made in rebuilding our economy from the middle out, not the top down," a Democratic official said. "Gov. Crist can personally speak to this, and contrast the president's vision with Mitt Romney's, which caters to the most extreme elements of the Republican Party and undermines the middle class." See more here.

Florida  Agriculture Commmissioner Adam Putnam told Florida delegates about it this morning, and the news drew groans from the audience.

“Unbelievable,” Putnam said. “What does he stand for except for himself. He’ll wear any costume just to get in the parade.”

-- Alex Leary and Michael Van Sickler

Scott prepares for Isaac to become a hurricane and hit Panhandle

PALM HARBOR -- Gov. Rick Scott said he is returning to Tallahassee Monday as he expects Isaac to increase wind speeds and become a slow-moving hurricane that will make landfall somewhere between Pensacola and Mobile, Ala., Tuesday night, and dump an estimated 16 inches on the already-soaked Panhandle.

“Our risk right now is the Panhandle,’’ he told Florida RNC delegates at the group’s breakfast meeting on Monday at Innisbrook Resort and Spa in Palm Harbor. “It is drenched already.” 

Scott told the delegates to “stay stay where you are” today as he expects tropical storm force winds, tornadoes and rain in Tampa. He warned, however, that while the expectation is that the storm will continue to move westward it is “wobbling a lot.”

Scott also announced that the RNC will partner with the American Red Cross to raise money for families and individuals affected by the storm. "We can't stop a hurricane, but we can react to it,'' he said.

The governor, who has been getting frequent briefings from emergency management officials while operating out of the an emergency operations center at the Republican National Convention, said Florida hasn't "had a lot of damage" from Isaac's soaking. An estimated 100,000 homes and businesses were without power in South Florida, he said, and as wind speeds pick up he expects a three to four inch storm surge in Tampa late Monday and wind speeds of up to 50 mph.

That means the delegates should stay where they are, and not attempt to "venture in to Tampa today. We don't know if the bridges will be closed."

Most activities have been cancelled at the convention center and temporary tents that have been erected to shield people from wind and sun, can only sustain winds of 25 mph, Scott said.

For the 95 Florida delegates and alternates, located at 26 miles away from Tampa, the governor joked that they now are safe from any coastal flooding. "The RNC was so nice to us, we don't have to worry about the beach,'' he said.

On a day originally expected to be jam-packed with speakers, the Florida delegates were greeted with “Fresh From Florida” steak and eggs breakfast, hosted by Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.