FLORIDA POLITICS
Since 2002, daily Florida political news and commentary

 

UPDATE: Every morning we review and individually digest Florida political news articles, editorials and punditry. Our sister site, FLA Politics was selected by Campaigns & Elections as one of only ten state blogs in the nation
"every political insider should be reading right now."

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Welcome To Florida Politics

Thanks for visiting. On a semi-daily basis we scan Florida's major daily newspapers for significant Florida political news and punditry. We also review the editorial pages and political columnists/pundits for Florida political commentary. The papers we review include: the Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Naples News, Sarasota Herald Tribune, St Pete Times, Tampa Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Tallahassee Democrat, and, occasionally, the Florida Times Union; we also review the political news blogs associated with these newspapers.

For each story, column, article or editorial we deem significant, we post at least the headline and link to the piece; the linked headline always appears in quotes. We quote the headline for two reasons: first, to allow researchers looking for the cited piece to find it (if the link has expired) by searching for the original title/headline via a commercial research service. Second, quotation of the original headline permits readers to appreciate the spin from the original piece, as opposed to our spin.

Not that we don't provide spin; we do, and plenty of it. Our perspective appears in post headlines, the subtitles within the post (in bold), and the excerpts from the linked stories we select to quote; we also occasionally provide other links and commentary about certain stories. While our bias should be immediately apparent to any reader, we nevertheless attempt to link to every article, column or editorial about Florida politics in every major online Florida newspaper.

 

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The Blog for Thursday, December 23, 2004

"Jeb!"'s "Mess"

    Officially, a nine-member board, which the governor appoints, sets policy. In mid-1999, after Gov. Bush used his first appointments to run off then-Director Sam Poole, the new board hired Frank Finch. Two years later, because of the board's meddling and incompetence, Mr. Finch was under siege, and the district was a mess. A year earlier, the governor's office had forced Mr. Finch to fire the district's top land-buyer at a time when land-buying was the state's responsibility in Everglades restoration.

    Having made the mess, Gov. Bush asked Mr. Dean to fix it. He had been director of the Palatka-based St. Johns River Water Management District, so he knew the state and the politics of the job. Soon, he had calmed things at the South Florida district's West Palm Beach headquarters. He hired skilled people for the land acquisition department. As Audubon of Florida lobbyist Eric Draper says, "Henry's got this way of getting in place and making things happen."
    "Big choice for governor: Next water district chief".

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