James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put six potentially vulnerable Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye' " if they block conservative appointments to the Supreme Court. ...

He singled out Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida. All six are up for re-election in 2006.

"We in Florida know how powerful mother nature is," said Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bush. "During our unprecedented hurricane season this year, the governor took a lead role in responding, assessing the damage and coordinating relief efforts."

It's Gov. Jeb Bush's experience with mother nature, not his relationship with his brother, that may be the reason he's been chosen, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, to lead a U.S. delegation to earthquake and tsunami-ravaged parts of Asia.

It also may set the stage for Gov. Jeb Bush's own run at the White House in 2008, despite his insistence he is headed back to the business world in Miami. The governor's staff says he is perfectly suited for the mission after overseeing disaster relief in Florida following four hurricanes.

"It's not that he brings a special expertise about emergency management," Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said Friday. "It's that he's the president's brother, and symbols are important. This is partly a public-relations operation. The president got off on the wrong foot here and got a lot of criticism."

Driving north from Tampa on Florida's Route 75 on November 1, as the battle over who would hold political power in America was reaching a climax but the struggle over what that battle meant had yet to begin, I put down the top of my rented green convertible, turned the talk radio voices up to blaring, and commenced reading the roadside. Beside me billboards flew past, one hard upon another, as if some errant giant had cut a great deck of cards and fanned them out along each shoulder. Hour by hour, as the booming salesman's voice of proud Floridian Rush Limbaugh rumbled from the radio, warning gravely of the dangers of "voting for bin Laden" ("Haven't you noticed that bin Laden is using Democratic talking points?"), and other ominous voices reminded listeners of the "hundreds of votes" Senator Kerry cast "against our national defense" ("In a time of terror, when our enemies are gathering...can we afford to take that risk?"), I watched rush by, interspersed with the blaring offers of "Florida Citrus! One Bag $1!" and "Need Help With Sinkholes?," a series of perhaps fifty garish signs announcing an approaching "Adult Toy Café!" and "Adult Toy Extravaganza!" and then "We Bare All!" and finally, the capper, "All Nude—Good Food— Truckers Welcome!"

If your babies were left all alone in the dead of night, who would you rather have setting there on the porch—John Kerry and his snowboard or George W. with his shotgun?

—Sean Michaels, professional wrestler, warming up the crowd, Tinker Field, October 30, 2004

On a beautiful October evening three days before the election, Orlando's Tinker Field had become an enormous bowl filled with 17,000 screaming, chanting Bush partisans floating in a sea of red, white, and blue. On the stadium wall hung a great fifty-foot high sign proclaiming that George W. Bush was "MOVING AMERICA FORWARD!" Inside, flanking the stage in letters that dwarfed it, and echoed by smaller signs bobbing up and down everywhere in the crowd, was the terse slogan "AMERICA: SAFER STRONGER BETTER!" And then, precisely placed around the stadium in enormous letters, were the words on which the campaign was built: "STRENGTH! LEADERSHIP! CHARACTER! INTEGRITY!" Disciplined, organized, relentless, the Bush campaign would never be accused of subtlety.

In fact, the study by the Catalogue of Philanthropy ranked the 50 states on a "generosity index" that measured charitable giving in comparison to state wealth.

Given that they also rank high on measurements of church attendance -- which correlates with charitable giving -- states in the South, Midwest and Rockies, which President Bush carried against Kerry, would seem likely to rank high on that index. And, in fact, the 25 most generous states in that index all voted for Bush.

Using published data of individual tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, we compare the rank of each state's average adjusted gross income (AAGI) to the rank of each state's average itemized charitable deductions (AICD). The arithmetical differences between these two rankings are then themselves ranked, resulting in the Generosity Index rank

First, the total AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) for all the returns from each state is divided by the total number of returns from that state to get the average AGI. The states are then ranked from the highest to the lowest average AGI to give a "Having Rank" from the best (1) to the worst (50).

Secondly, the total charitable contributions claimed via itemizing are divided by the total number of returns that itemized such deductions for each state. The states are then ranked from the highest to the lowerst average deduction to give a "Giving Rank" from the best (1) to the worst (50).

Finally, the "Giving Rank" is subtracted from the "Having Rank" to give the "Rank Relation". The states are then ranked from the highest to the lowest "Rank Relation" to give a "Generosity Index" from the best (1) to the worst (50). For example, Mississippi had the lowest average AGI ("Having Index" of 50) but the sixth highest average deduction ("Giving Index" of 6), giving it a "Rank Relation" of 44 (50 minus 6). This was the largest "Rank Relation" giving it the best "Generosity Index" of 1.

[T]he first major flaw with this method is that it is comparing apples and oranges. It is comparing the average AGI [Adjusted Gross Income] of all taxpayers in a state to the average charitable deductions claimed by only those who itemized such deductions. This favors states that have a large number of taxpayers with low AGIs who do not itemize. Such taxpayers will pull down the average AGI (and the "Having Rank") but will have absolutely no effect on the charitable deductions claimed (and the "Giving Rank"). The aforementioned xls file shows the percentage of the total number of taxpayers in each state who claimed charitable deductions. As can be seen, of the twenty states with the best generosity indices, all but 4 had LESS than 30% of all taxpayers claim such deductions. Of the twenty states with the worst generosity indices, however, all but 3 had MORE than 30% of all taxpayers claim such deductions. Coincidence?

The second major flaw in this method is subtracting the "Giving Rank" from the "Having Rank" to get the "Ranks Relation". This favors the states with low average AGIs. For example, suppose that all taxpayers in the state with the highest AGI gave all of their money to charity. They would likely earn a "Giving Rank" of 1. Subtracting that from their "Having Rank" of 1, however, would give them a "Ranks Relation" of 0. This would give them a mere average Generosity Index despite the fact that they had given all of their money away. Likwise, suppose that Mississippi had given nothing to charity. That would have earned them a "Giving Rank" of 50 which, subtracted from their "Having Rank of 50, would give the same Generosity Index of 0. In short, the Generosity Index penalizes "rich" states. It's likewise no coincidence that, of the twenty states with the best generosity indices, all but 4 have "Having Ranks" LARGER than 25. Of the twenty states with the worst generosity indices, however, all but 3 have "Having Ranks" SMALLER than 25.

[Colin] Powell and the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has experience with extensive hurricane damage in Florida, leave Sunday to visit coastal areas in the Indian Ocean ravaged by last Sunday's tsunamis.

Two former employees were arrested Wednesday for allegedly stealing more than $1.9 million from the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

Evelyn D. Minott, the chamber's former executive finance director, and Freddy Luna, the former finance manager, were arrested after an investigation into missing funds, the State Attorney's Office said.

What is a day-care operator to do with that recently discovered glitch in Florida's new pre-kindergarten program? Some would take the money and run, though the more ethical ones would use it to improve day-care services for the children they serve.

Because of a loophole that wasn't discovered until well after this month's special legislative session had ended, private child-care companies that receive federal funds for low-income families can bill both the state and federal governments for the same services.

A word of advice for state employees expecting overtime pay - don't spend that check just yet.

It was supposed to become the stuff of legend: how Gov. Bush designed a "seamless" new Florida education system, complete with a "superboard" to set education policy from pre-kindergarten to graduate school. Instead, a citizen group's lawsuit has served notice that the governor and lawmakers usurped Florida's Constitution.

One reason for the drop is that the Legislature eliminated the department which handles complaints about non-regulated business, such as dry cleaners and retail stores, department spokeswoman Liz Compton said. The positions have since been restored.

has asked a Tallahassee judge to keep secret his financial dealings since 2001.

Next week, the Miami Republican will square off against his nemesis, the Florida Elections Commission, over what amount he should be fined for 17 remaining campaign law violations that stem from his 1999 election to the Florida Senate.

Diaz de la Portilla could be fined as much as $17,000, but among the key factors in deciding an appropriate fine will be his income and his assets. Attorneys for the commission have asked for tax returns, bank statements, credit-card bills, car titles and investment listings spelling out Diaz de la Portilla's finances for the last four years.

Florida Senate Minority Leader Les Miller, a fixture in Tampa politics for two decades, on Wednesday said he is battling kidney cancer.

Bush's attorney, Ken Connor, said the governor may ask [U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who acts as the portal to the high court for emergency appeals from the Southeast] to stay any tube removal if the Schindlers cannot convince the state appeals court to reconsider.

Wednesday's appeals court ruling means the U.S. Supreme Court may be the Schindlers' last hope, Connor said.

Reversing an earlier opinion, the Securities and Exchange Commission staff has sided with Walt Disney Co., in effect preventing shareholders from being able to nominate directors to the board. ...

"It's extremely unusual," said Richard Ferlauto, director of pension and benefits policy for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "This had been vetted extremely closely by the SEC. There must have been a huge lobbying effort on the part of Disney to overturn this. It shows their further disregard for shareholder opinion." ...

The SEC last year published a plan allowing large institutional investors to put their own candidates on proxy ballots under certain conditions. The plan stalled after opposition from the Business Roundtable, a Washington-based lobby group, and similar organizations that said it would leave boards vulnerable to special interests.

Just as school districts are trying to make charter schools more accountable for the money they already get, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist is lobbying to give them even more money. Mr. Crist issued an advisory opinion claiming that districts have to give charter schools the same amount of money they give traditional public schools.

The opinion isn't binding, which is just as well since it's blatantly political. It was issued at the request of Al Cardenas, former head of the state Republican Party and now a lobbyist for charter schools. When Mr. Crist was running for attorney general in 2002, Mr. Cardenas stuck up for him when another GOP candidate noted that Mr. Crist twice failed the bar exam and had accepted contributions from a company that the attorney general's office was investigating.

Three Florida women, including nationally renowned gun rights advocate Marion Hammer of Tallahassee, were named Tuesday by Gov. Jeb Bush to the state Women's Hall of Fame.

A sobering contrast emerged among crimes motivated by sexual orientation, a category that suffered its largest proportional increase in the report's 13-year history.... [However] the report does little to shed new light on the complexity of the problem across Florida, especially on how it affects specific cities, largely because the study -- and others like it -- relies too heavily on numbers that have little useful uniformity.

LePore leaves the $121,490 supervisor's position next week after losing an Aug. 31 reelection bid. She needs to work about three or four more months to qualify for optimum pension benefits.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is promoting a measure that would allow barely treated sewage to be dumped into rivers, bays and other waterways.

The stakes for tourist-dependent Florida are high. Last year the state had to close beaches in 6,401 instances because of high bacteria counts.

With the Center for Efficient Government and a Senate oversight committee both looking into the good, the bad and the ugly of outsourcing, Floridians may eventually get some hard information.

Too bad it took Gov. Jeb Bush six years to seek that information - six years after the privatization train had left the station.

To date the itch to privatize the work that government has done without a profit motive for eons has been assumed to be invariably all good.

"Assume nothing," which was the mantra of the late Senate powerhouse Dempsey Barron - and of all journalists worth their salt - would have been much more realistic than the buzz words and sound bites Mr. Bush has employed to describe his mission to downsize government and parcel off its legitimate services to well-connected, for-profit private companies.

Thanks to Thomas Jefferson's rules, the U.S. House and Senate can't criticize each other. Some House Republicans want to change that....

The rule change, proposed by Florida Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, is one of 10 sought by a growing cadre of House conservatives, called the Republican Study Committee, that's pressing for more clout in the upcoming session of Congress.

Ending a Canadian business trip with a weeklong vacation in Maine before his son's wedding in Kennebunkport last summer, Gov. Jeb Bush had a slight scheduling problem - the kickoff of Florida's summer sales-tax holiday and a speech to a convention of military officers in Orlando.

But he also had a fast solution: A $5.3 million Cessna Citation Bravo to whisk him down from Maine and back in three hours, each way.

The gleaming twin-engine jet with the state seal next to its hatch and an orange ribbon undulating down its fuselage also came in handy for the governor, other elected officials and department heads during the chaotic six weeks last summer when Florida got hit by four hurricanes. Bush and Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings, all three Cabinet officers and various emergency-preparedness chiefs were able to get into airports from Punta Gorda to Pensacola within hours of the big storms.

"The benefit of it is, it goes a little bit faster, but not much," Bush said after returning to Tallahassee for Christmas late last week. "It doesn't make any noise, so you can hold meetings and get work done, because of the new engines and the insulation, I guess."

You're asking someone without a police car, probably without a gun, to arrest a guy," said [Se. Rod] Smith, a Democrat from Gainesville. "What are you going to do? Tell the guy `Sit in the front seat of my '83 Taurus so I can arrest you?'"

The trailer across from the Capitol will suffice for a few months for U.S. Sen.-elect Mel Martinez.

Hate crimes across Florida fell by 10 percent last year despite a big increase in attacks on gays, according to a report released Monday by state Attorney General Charlie Crist.

[t]he Martinez campaign has made the fight against what it calls "the radical homosexual lobby" central to its campaign. It's the subject of an attack ad -- removed ... under political pressure -- and a stinging mailer that criticizes rival Bill McCollum, a fellow conservative, for "pandering to gays" because he supported so-called hate crimes legislation in Congress.

Why sexual-orientation incidents increased "is an important question," but one Crist said he could not answer.

He rejected the notion that social tensions over gay rights could be related.

"I don't accept that different points of view on political issues lead to a hate crime. We don't have to agree on everything in this country, but to take it to the next level and say it leads to criminal behavior is unacceptable."

But [Heddy Peña, executive director of SAVE Dade, a human rights organization] links the targeting of gays and lesbians to "rhetoric that increases hostility, and given the rhetoric during the 2004 elections, this category will increase next year."

Crist, a Republican, won't acknowledge any connection between the kind of anti-gay rights language used during the campaign by some conservative candidates and a social climate where violence toward gays is acceptable, because "that would point to his political party, and no one wants to be responsible for that," she said.

Some members are peeved that the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature appropriated $9 million a year, essentially forever, to fund the proposed Tallahassee school before the board approved anything.

Martinez succeeds Graham in a political year dominated by Republicans

More than 2.3-million of the state's poorest residents may have decisions on their Medicaid eligibility and other welfare assistance programs made by a company if Gov. Jeb Bush ....

Yet no difference in savings is projected ....

"If that's the case, and they're projecting a wash, I don't understand why" it would be done, said Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Crystal River, chairwoman of the Government Oversight and Productivity Committee.

She has complained that her committee hasn't been able to obtain data in the past when evaluating privatization of government work.

Earlier this month, a key DCF administrator in charge of such contracts resigned and warned that many of the agency's major contracts were being rushed through too fast. The Bush administration has been plagued by problems trying to privatize state functions, the most recent at DCF.

has spawned a network of contractors who have given him, other Republican politicians and the Florida G.O.P. millions of dollars in campaign donations."

The future of an ambitious $259 million partnership to outsource state technology remains uncertain a week before the contracts are set to expire, as a criminal investigation continues into one of those contracts....

The contracts, with technology giants Accenture and BearingPoint, constitute the so-called MyFlorida Alliance, a seven-year project designed to reduce redundancy, improve services and save money by consolidating services each state agency previously handled on its own.

[Chief Information Officer Simone] Marstiller hopes to select a temporary contractor to oversee the employees while the state decides what to do next.

The governor's inspector general now says PRIDE Inc. violated state law when it spun off corporations unrelated to its prison industries ....

PRIDE, which stands for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises, was created in 1981 for the purpose of putting Florida prison inmates to work. The idea, advanced by drug store magnate and philanthropist Jack Eckerd, was to replace Department of Corrections supervisors with a nonprofit company that would employ basic business principles to advance a notably public goal: to give inmates real-life work skills so they could become productive citizens upon their release.

The resignation of yet another Department of Children & Families administrator last week should ring alarm bells. This agency still is in big trouble. Seven top DCF officials, including former Secretary Jerry Regier, have either resigned or been fired since the governor's inspector general last summer issued a scathing report on favoritism in contract awards. Gov. Jeb Bush recently appointed Luci Hadi to head the agency....

The DCF is in the process of privatizing the monitoring of $1.5 billion in social services delivered by yet more private firms. Mr. Fierro's staff has been cut by half, and he says that they are so rushed to negotiate these contracts that quality is jeopardized, risking millions in tax dollars.

Florida may award a plump $701.4 million contract despite a lack of evidence that such a move will save more money than keeping the job within a state agency.

"We have no alternative but to drive toward modernization [apparently, Hadi's euphemism for privatization] aggressively," replied DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi

Jeb Bush has already blazed the [spoils system ] trail. Florida's governor has been an aggressive privatizer, and as The Miami Herald put it after a careful study of state records, "his bold experiment has been a success — at least for him and the Republican Party, records show. The policy has spawned a network of contractors who have given him, other Republican politicians and the Florida G.O.P. millions of dollars in campaign donations."

Florida Democrats met this week to devise a strategy to return to relevance, as several of their leading figures consider gubernatorial runs. One has a familiar name: Lawton Chiles III.