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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 Saturday, November 05, 2005

PBP Slams Hood: "Politics Happened"

    Glenda Hood, in the tradition of Katherine Harris, embarassed herself and the State of Florida
    [P]olitics happened. Floridians voted in 1998 to switch to an appointed elections chief beginning in 2003. The decision came before the 2000 presidential election, but the partisan actions of Ms. Hood's elected predecessor, Katherine Harris, confirmed the wisdom of depoliticizing an office that was supposed to conduct unbiased elections.

    But the method of purging politics — gubernatorial appointment — didn't work. Perhaps it was naive to think that it could. Rather than stick up for voters by trying to count every possible legal vote, Ms. Hood supported policies that threw out votes that could have been counted, and improperly sought to bar qualified voters from casting ballots. Not coincidentally, her mistakes and narrow decisions favored Republicans over Democrats.

    Most notoriously, Ms. Hood sought to impose on local elections officials a mistake-filled list of voters who, as alleged former felons, could not vote. When questions arose about the list's accuracy, Ms. Hood wasted the public's money on a lawsuit to keep it secret.

    Working for an administration that considers everything it does "bold," Ms. Hood was remarkably timid about seeking legislative solutions to obvious problems, such as improving methods of early voting to reduce long lines and dealing with required "hand recounts" in a world of electronic ballots. Ms. Hood returns to Orlando, where she once served as mayor, without doing enough to restore trust in the basic right to vote.
    "Vote of low confidence".

7:03 AM

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