Fernandez said he was quitting to spend more time with his family and businesses. And he praised Scott’s campaign in a letter to the campaign’s leadership team.

Fernandez began expressing his frustrations at least a month ago when he sent an email to top Scott allies and complained about two campaign aides who had joked around in a cartoon-style Mexican accent en route to a Mexican restaurant in Fernandez’s home town of Coral Gables.

Fernandez, who is Cuban, wouldn’t comment about the email.

Fernandez, though, said his real issues concerned the campaign’s direction and not the governor. But he acknowledged his own faults, noting he never ran a campaign. . . .

Fernandez’s departure is the latest upheaval in Scott’s campaign.

In November, the governor’s office chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, helped minimize the role of Scott’s once-top political advisor, pollster Tony Fabrizio, who has been credited with being the driving force behind Scott’s improbable 2010 win.

Republicans say Hollingsworth has also had a tense relationship with Fernandez’s possible successor: former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, John Rood.

Weekly Roundup

Kevin Derby: "Political Bits and Pieces"., See also "Week in Review for March 21, 2014" and "Weekly Roundup: Governors, Past and Present, in the Spotlight". More: "Arrivals and Departures".

"Lawmakers poised to clash over budget in coming weeks"

"The two chambers' spending plans are similar, yet lawmakers are poised to clash over budget priorities in the coming weeks." "House and Senate budgets close as chambers prep spending plans".

Scott (literally) chased out of town

"A day after Gov. Rick Scott was picketed by angry Pensacola residents and refused to talk to them, he abruptly canceled a controversial plan by his prisons chief to shift a probation and parole office to a residential neighborhood."

Scott’s action Friday followed a furor as he left a Thursday fund-raiser at The Fish House, a popular Pensacola waterfront restaurant.

About three dozen residents of the historic North Hill neighborhood, some carrying picket signs, had gathered on a public street outside the seafood restaurant, hoping to make a direct appeal to Scott to reconsider the decision to put a probation and parole office in a former Coca-Cola plant. They said they had public safety concerns about parolees and probationers walking in an area with many single-family homes. According to a report in the Pensacola News Journal, Scott not only did not stop to listen to the residents, but the driver of his black sport-utility vehicle flashed its lights and blew its siren as his three-car caravan drove off, scaring the residents.

Big of 'em

"Legislature keeps insurance perks for workers".

"Polk County Republicans set to duel"

"With Seth McKeel headed out of Tallahassee due to term limits, two Polk County Republicans are set to duel in what should be one of the most competitive legislative primaries in Florida this year." "Colleen Burton and John Hugh Shannon Get Set to Run for Open House Seat in Polk".

"A decidedly negative affair"

"The race for the Republican nomination for the 19th Congressional District seat has turned into a decidedly negative affair, with hyperbolic accusations and character assassination floated freely in television ads, mailers and news stories bombarding Southwest Florida voters." "Dirty politics: Republican primary for House takes nasty turn".

"A pattern of hubris by politicians"

The Miami Herald editors bemoan "a pattern of hubris by politicians, local and national, that appears epidemic." "When will they ever learn?"

Wingers in a dither

"As federal health officials are aggressively courting young adults to sign up for health insurance with celebrity endorsement and social media campaigns, they are also getting significant help from the very demographic they're targeting."

Busy medical, nursing and law students across Florida are getting certified as counselors and are staffing enrollment events as the March 31 deadline to sign up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act looms. Many of the students were active in outreach programs to provide medical and legal services in low-income neighborhoods, but being "able to sign up patients for health insurance and get coverage that's more than just one time care really completes the circle," said Ali Moody, a second year medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Voucher madness

"A Republican senator withdrew his [voucher] bill, saying there were too many unanswered questions about accountability." "School voucher bill suffers serious setback".

Good luck with that

Fabiola Santiago: "Sports subsidies should not override funding for social issues".

Yee haw!

"The so-called Pop-Tart and warning shot bills passed out of the House with bi-partisan support." "Gun bills find support in state House".

BushCo rising

"Will Florida's Jeb be the third Bush president?" More: "Jeb Bush is ‘seriously’ considering White House run: GOP heavyweight".

"Look for surprises and good-old-fashioned horse-trading"

Aaron Deslatte: "When Florida policymakers set major goals for a two-month lawmaking session in an environmentally and economically fragile megastate, it is inevitable that entropy takes hold and things start falling apart."

But politicians do have one marketable skill when it comes to making a deal. So look for surprises and good-old-fashioned horse-trading in the six weeks ahead on issues such as gambling, school vouchers and efforts to save Florida's dying springs.

"House Democrats are poorly served"

Nancy Smith believes "House Democrats are poorly served when their leader [in her view] puts personal ambition ahead of the good of the caucus." "Perry Thurston's Lamentable Leadership Lapse".

"Yoho Kicks Off Second-Term Bid"

"As he kicks off his bid for a second term, U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., finds himself in a much different position than last time out."

In 2012, Yoho, a large-animal veteran who was a political unknown, was challenging longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., in the Republican primary. But this time, Yoho started his campaign off by touting the endorsement of one of the leading Republican presidential possibilities of the 2016 election.

Sink loss "dampened Democratic hopes that the party could retake the House"

"The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare was implicated in Democrat Alex Sink’s narrow loss last Tuesday in a nationally watched special election for an open St. Petersburg congressional seat. The loss dampened Democratic hopes that the party could retake the House." "President Obama visits Miami to raise money for Democrats still hurting from Alex Sink’s loss in congressional race".

Scott politics while conducting "official business"

Health care wizard "Rick Scott Friday made another in a series of appearances in Tampa that are technically on official business but which have strong political overtones -- this one to push his anti-Obamacare message and his contention that President Barack Obama 'cut Medicare to pay for Obamacare.'" Never mind that

similar cuts were included the budget plan pushed by House Republicans and authored by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.

"Raising questions about what role, if any, Democrats play in Tallahassee"

Update: "Panuccio confirmation stays on track as Senate digs into budget". "These past few months have been a rough stretch for Jesse Panuccio, the embattled executive director of Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity."

Since mid-October, Panuccio has had to explain to state lawmakers what went wrong with the launch of CONNECT, a $63 million website plagued with glitches that prevented thousands of Floridians from getting unemployment benefits on time.

But that didn’t stop last week’s preliminary confirmation of Panuccio by a Senate appropriations committee that not only overlooked the disaster, but rewrote some of the history surrounding it, as well.

By a 10-0 vote, the Senate’s appropriations subcommittee on transportation, tourism and economic development confirmed Panuccio, 33, to the $141,000 job overseeing 1,621 employees and an $872.7 million budget. He took the post 15 months ago after a stint as Gov. Rick Scott’s general counsel. He has two more committees and a floor vote in the Senate before he’s fully confirmed.

If Wednesday is any indication, however, Panuccio will easily survive a crisis that required federal intervention to unite desperate Floridians with the money they were owed.

“I’m not just going to support you, I’m going to do everything I can in the process to make sure you get to the end,” said the committee chairman, Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, who will become Senate president later this year. “I think what helps me is when this issue happened with the website, unlike some other areas in the state and Washington that just pointed fingers . . . we took ownership of it and we fixed it. And we addressed it. And I think that that, in my opinion, is leadership.”

Gardiner can say what he wants, but facts should still matter in the Senate. In his justification for supporting Panuccio, they clearly don’t.

In October, Nelson was the first public official (and still one of the few) to demand a federal investigation into why the website was failing claimants. Nelson persisted, and federal officials intervened in mid-January. After several meetings, they persuaded Panuccio to pay all claims that had been dragging on for more than a week, exactly what California didn’t hesitate to do in a similar situation.

Thanks to the prodding of Nelson and federal officials, thousands of Floridians got the money they needed for food, rent and bills.

Yet Gardiner credits Panuccio with “addressing the issue.” It was only in January than Panuccio concluded that things were serious enough that he needed 330 extra employees, at a cost of $165,000 a week. A week later, he hired another consultant.

Compare that 11-week reaction time to the much-maligned federal health insurance site, healthcare.gov. Launched on Oct. 1, a new technical team was working on it three weeks later, and had the site up and running by Nov. 30.

Perhaps most startling is Gardiner’s statement that CONNECT is now fixed. Not even Panuccio is saying that. . . .

Gardiner’s most galling omission in his revised DEO history is how officials have underplayed their incredible good luck.

Because Congress failed to renew federal long-term unemployment benefits, they ran out at the end of December, and 88,000 fewer Floridians were eligible for unemployment, significantly lightening the load on the hobbled CONNECT.

Yet in its public statements, the DEO continually credits CONNECT and management decisions for the decline in unprocessed claims.

Meanwhile, DEO hasn’t been able to release any numbers that show how CONNECT is performing.

That makes Gardiner’s statement that the system is fixed all the more extraordinary. . . .

Though graciously acknowledging the plight of the unemployed, Panuccio replied in a way that suggests contrition is not part of his road to confirmation.

“I’ve learned a lot about leadership, about managing large organizations,” he said. “It was a hard few months, much harder for the people being affected by delayed claims than it was for any of us, but I also feel proud of the team for working really tirelessly and countless hours to get this thing working.”

Panuccio didn’t say what exactly he learned about leadership, nor did the committee ask.

Instead, he won bipartisan praise, raising questions about what role, if any, Democrats play in Tallahassee.

Ethics reforms

The Tampa Trib editors: "The state’s legislative leaders are putting ethics reform front and center this legislative session by backing a number of proposals that will make lawmakers and government officials more accountable." "Ethics reforms deserve support".

Sally Bradshaw "couldn’t cite a lot of tangible results"

"The authors of last year’s post-2012 election “autopsy report” for the Republican Party said Monday they see progress implementing the recommendations of the report, including expanding the party’s appeal to minorities. But they said change will be gradual, and couldn’t cite a lot of tangible results so far. 'I think we’ve made substantial progress,' said one of the authors, veteran Florida GOP strategist Sally Bradshaw. 'The report did not sit on a shelf.'" "GOP officials see progress after 2012 defeat".

The new ACORN

"It might be nonpartisan and have 'voters' in its name, but the League of Women Voters of Florida also increasingly tackles politically charged issues outside of elections."

Recently, the 75-year-old organization has advocated for Medicaid expansion, organized visits to Cuba and opposed private school voucher expansion.

It’s a progressive agenda at first blush, though league president Deirdre Macnab is quick to note that Medicaid expansion, for example, has the support of Sen. Rene Garcia, a conservative Hialeah Republican.

The group’s website says the organization’s work is “strictly nonpartisan; we neither support nor oppose candidates for office at any level of government.”

At the same time, the site says, “the League is wholeheartedly political and works to influence policy through advocacy.”

Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political science professor and Florida politics expert, noted the group has been active on a number of traditionally liberal causes.

"Skewed system is a travesty to all involved"

Paula Dockery wonders if we are "witnessing the death of local determination of elections?"

Sure, the registered voters of the community are the only ones who can actually cast a ballot, but are they getting local representation or a nationalized, prepackaged product that is being marketed by others with little to no regard for their well-being?

Call me a Pollyanna, but I liked the good old days when candidates decided to run because they wanted to be the voice for the best interests of their community. Candidates knew the issues, knew the community and knew many of the voters. A campaign was a local event and a two-way conversation between voters and a person earning their trust to represent them.

Campaigning involved mixing with voters at events, forums, fairs and public spaces. It involved letting voters see you, talk to you, question you, get to know you. Some of that still occurs today, but what is missing is the candidate serving as master of his or her own campaign.

For those living in the Tampa Bay media market, my condolences for what you had to endure over the past three months. With very little other political action taking place nationally, last week’s special election in congressional district 13 to fill the seat of long-time U.S. Rep. Bill Young attracted a massive amount of national attention and interference in a race that should have been a local matter.

When did we go from local communities picking an individual to a nationalized media campaign to influence and deceive us into buying what they’re trying to sell?

And why do we allow these outsiders to take our fundamental right and responsibility away from us? The answer is two-fold: ignorance and money.

There’s not much we can do about the obscene amount of money that pours into these races. The Citizens’ United ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court allows the almost unfettered expenditure of money to corrupt and corrode the ability of candidates to control their campaigns. Conversely, candidates are limited in the amount of money they can collect from a contributor.

How on God’s green earth does it make sense that outside groups could have more court-protected influence to affect the outcome of an election than a resident of the area to be represented or the candidate himself?

This skewed system is a travesty to all involved. It vastly undermines the candidate’s ability to control his or her message, strategy, actions and timing. Instead, the candidate has to react, explain, apologize and put out fires.

Fracking away in Tally

"Last year, a bill aimed at creating hydraulic fracturing requirements was well on its way to the state House floor — sailing through all of its committee stops within the first month of the 2013 legislative session. A year later, the bill’s sponsor said the mood in Tallahassee has changed, making the likelihood of the proposal passing much less likely." "Legislator doubts fracking bill will pass this year".

Egg on Emily's (List's) Face?

Nancy Smith: "EMILY Has Egg on Her Face".

Stand 'yer stupid

Bill Cotterell: "Bill would not repeal the law, but clarifies questions arising from controversial cases. It passed unanimously and the NRA supported the changes. " "Senate Panel Approves "Stand Your Ground" Changes".

CD 19

Kevin Derby: "CD 19 Candidates' Animosity Grows Fiercer".

Wastewater - 'ya got a problem wit dat?

Lloyd Brown can't help himself: his latest whine about - get this - "big environment" is that, "Liberals never can get it through their skulls that people are part of the environment." "Making Minnows Happy Is Important to Special Interests".

"Florida loses 2,600 jobs in January"

Update: "Florida loses 2,600 jobs in January, but unemployment rate falls to 6.1 percent".

Meanwhile, "The economy was front-and-center Monday in the increasingly contentious Florida gubernatorial race as Gov. Rick Scott announced Florida's unemployment rate dropped to 6.1 percent in January, the lowest it's been since June 2008."

But Crist’s team fired back with campaign spokesman Kevin Cate insisting Scott had promised to make 1.7 million jobs. Scott’s team insisted their policies would create 700,000 jobs over seven years during the 2010 campaign.

"Rick Scott’s 1.7 million jobs promise is failing because he handed a billion dollars in corporate tax breaks to his buddies for almost no jobs, while cutting education and training," Cate said on Monday. "He is still desperately attempting to take credit for a recovery that’s more anemic than what the economy was already predicted to do on its own."

The Florida Democratic Party also hit Scott on Monday, with Chairwoman Allison Tant attacking the governor for not supporting raising the minimum wage.

“Helping Florida working families succeed should be something we are all on board with ... right?” Tant asked supporters on Monday. “Rick Scott doesn't think so. In fact, talking about raising the minimum wage makes him ‘cringe!’

More: "UNF Poll: Rick Scott and Charlie Crist Almost Even".

"Senator lobbed a political grenade"

Scott Maxwell: "As more than 100 Planned Parenthood supporters rallied Monday outside Gov. Rick Scott’s office for increased access to health care, Tampa’s state senator lobbed a political grenade." "Sen. Joyner lashes out at Medicaid expansion foes".

Opposed to Obamacare when he was a Republican, Crist is now a Democrat and is all for the Affordable Care Act.

Such flip-flops and evolutions and pirouettes make Crist’s relationship with the unpopular law one of the most-complicated in the nation.

Now it might be one of the riskiest.

Yet Crist has little choice but to embrace the law right now. Running in a primary against Nan Rich, Crist needs to prove his Democratic bona fides. The Democratic base approves of the law.

“I think it’s been great,” Crist said in a CNN interview last Sunday.

It wasn’t great for Crist’s fellow Democrat Alex Sink, who narrowly lost a special election Tuesday for a congressional seat based in Crist’s home county, Pinellas.

Obamacare wasn’t the only issue in the race. But conservatives made the law a major point.

"Glaring loophole"

Aaron Deslatte: "Florida's campaign-finance reform that passed last session is still shaking out in the political playing field."

The law raised the contribution limit from $500 for legislative candidates to $1,000, and to $3,000 in races for governor and Cabinet posts. It also eliminated one kind of political slush fund lawmakers and candidates had used to raise unlimited dollars from wealthy donors.

So far this year, those changes have had largely symbolic effects. . . .

The elimination of slush funds had little effect, either, because lawmakers simply created a different kind of fund and transferred their dollars into new bank accounts.

One glaring loophole that has had an effect is not requiring that state political parties and "leadership funds" disclose as quickly which companies and causes were filling their coffers. This has been a blow to transparency.

The law required candidates and interest groups to start filing monthly reports, but the state parties and other funds controlled by legislative leaders don't have to do that. So donors can funnel money through them if they want to avoid disclosing their funding as quickly.

But that doesn't tell us how much money flooded into the state Republican and Democratic party coffers in the weeks ahead of the legislative session, when companies, interests and wealthy donors will want maximum sway. What we do see from February data is that party transfers make up one of the biggest chunks of cash being moved from one place to another.

The best they can do

"Beer distributors, brewers fight over growlers".

Remember, his parents were (almost) exiles

Grubbing for the Hispanic vote, Senator Rubio "asks treasury secretary to meet Venezuelans". Oh yeah, "South Florida is home to the largest concentration of Venezuelans in the U.S."

Scott has been "14% True"

"Back in 2010, Rick Scott drew national attention for spending more than $70 million of his own money to win his first elected office as Florida’s governor. Since then, the Republican has become known for serious matters, like his staunch opposition to the federal healthcare law, as well as lighter moments, like when The Daily Show crashed one of his press conferences to make fun of Florida’s effort to drug-test welfare recipients."

On March 4, 2014, after Scott gave his fourth State of the State speech, PolitiFact Florida published its 100th and 101st fact-check of Scott.

• True 14 (14%)

• Mostly True 26 (26%)

• Half True 24 (24%)

• Mostly False 14 (14%)

• False 18 (18%)

• Pants on Fire 5 (5%)

Most of them are probably guilty

"It seems like the push now in Florida is to move forward with more dates, and that is different than what we see in the rest of the country," said Richard Dieter, director of the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

Charter madness

Wonder why this charter school company is so confident? Indeed,

Charter Schools USA isn't waiting for a judge to decide if it can open a disputed school in Orange County. Construction already has begun. . . .

The district plans to appeal a state Department of Education ruling last month that he district must allow Renaissance Charter Schools to open three new campuses in Orange. . . .

The chairman of the Renaissance board, which contracts with for-profit Charter Schools USA to run its public schools, said he is "appalled" that Orange is appealing and declined to answer questions about the school under construction.

Charter Schools USA and its owner, Jonathan Hage, are major donors to Gov. Rick Scott and have influenced changes to state law intended to make it easier for charter chains to open new schools.

Don't fool yourself . . . this is all about union hating

"Scores of marchers gathered this weekend in Polk County in hopes of prompting Publix to join a campaign designed to give tomato pickers decent wages and working conditions. A 24-hour vigil that started at 2 p.m. Friday outside the Southgate Publix supermarket in Polk County followed by a 3-mile march to downtown Lakeland on Saturday was the culmination the 'Now is the Time' multi-state bus tour across the Southeast. About 50 farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers left South Florida on March 5, to kick off a 10-day tour with stops in several places including Jacksonville, Atlanta and Nashville, Tenn." "Lakeland march ends 10-day 'Fair Food' tour targeting Publix".

"A blow to the legacy of former Gov. Jeb Bush"

"The Florida Supreme Court Thursday struck down a state law that limits the amount of money for 'pain and suffering' in deaths caused by medical malpractice, saying the cap violates the state constitution. The 5-2 ruling also is a blow to the legacy of former Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican who called a special session of state lawmakers to overhaul the way medical malpractice cases are handled." "Fla. Supreme Court strikes down cap on ‘pain and suffering’ awards".

Crist on the attack on the environmental front

"Scott is trailing in the polls to former Gov. Charlie Crist. Despite spending most of his political career as a Republican, Crist is the favorite for the Democratic nomination to challenge Scott in November. Earlier this week, Crist pointed to a Politifact story focusing on Scott’s commitment to spending on the environment and went on the attack." "Environment Becomes an Issue in the Gubernatorial Race".

Alex, shake off the loss and man up for a real challenge

Douglas C. Lyons: "Sorry about your loss. The fact that a one-time chief financial officer of Florida and candidate for governor loses a congressional seat to a lobbyist making his first bid for office is hard to swallow. . . . So, shake off the loss and man up for a real challenge, one that would benefit the state and better fit your skills: resurrecting the Florida's Democratic Party. The party has some good prospects, but not much of a network and resources to groom them for statewide office." "Memo to Alex Sink: There's a better way to serve Florida".

"Also-ran" Rubio runnin' like scared rabbit

The knuckle-draggers hope Lil' Marco Rubio is recovering

from the tarring he sustained after he proposed and helped push through the Senate the bill containing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants now in the country.

Facing the monumental backlash that quickly developed from the conservative GOP base, Rubio backed off the legislation [some might say, "flip-flopped" or "ran like scared rabbit"], offering to revise the bill and declining to help promote it in the House.

Fortunately for him, the bill never came up in the House. . . .

Since then, Rubio has been pursuing two paths to reunite himself with the conservative base of the party: red-meat anti-­Obama rhetoric focusing on the Affordable Care Act, and a series of high-profile speeches on everything from anti-poverty programs to foreign policy, an attempt to develop an image as a conservative policy heavyweight. . . .

Before his immigration proposal, Rubio had made a meteoric rise to near-rock-star status in the party, including a February, 2013 Time magazine cover suggesting he was the “savior” of the GOP.

At the 2013 installment of CPAC, just before Rubio’s immigration proposal, he came in a close second to Paul in the gathering’s presidential straw poll, with 23 percent.

In the straw poll at the 2014 CPAC a week ago, he finished a distant seventh, with 6 percent, while Paul was a runaway winner with 31 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was second with 11 percent.

In national polls of Republicans on the 2016 primary, Rubio has dropped from a front-runner in early 2013 to an also-ran — fifth place in the most recent RealClearPolitics polling average.

Runnin' with the dinosaurs

"Proposal gives school district's sole control of which textbooks to use".

Weekly Roundup

"Weekly Roundup: History Intrudes on Legislative Session". See also "Week in Review for March 14, 2014", "Political Bits and Pieces" and "Arrivals and Departures".

"The state of Gov. Rick Scott’s poll numbers is . . . sorry"

A good overview last week from Marc Caputo: "The state of Gov. Rick Scott’s poll numbers is . . . sorry. But many of Scott’s fellow Republicans were paying attention to a different set of numbers: a raft of poll data-points that make the GOP queasy because it shows Democrat Charlie Crist has broad support across Florida right now."

"The highlights:"

• 34 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to one business interest’s statewide survey. This margin is 12 points greater than Democrat Alex Sink’s in the 2010 governor’s race. If she had earned Crist’s poll numbers in just these two counties, Sink would have won.

• 10 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in another business interest’s statewide poll.

• 8 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in two other business interests’ statewide polls.

• 7 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in a fourth business interest’s statewide poll.

• 6 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in a poll of Republican-controlled state House districts across Florida.

• 4 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in North Florida, a Republican stronghold. The number is well within the poll’s error margin. But it’s a cumulative 17-point shift in favor of Democrats compared to 2010, and Sink would have won the governor’s race with this North Florida margin.

• 2 percentage points — the margin Scott beats Crist by in a poll of Republican-controlled state Senate districts in North Florida. Again, it’s within the error margin. But again: If Sink had had this margin, she probably would have won the governor’s race.

• 1 percentage point — the margin Crist beats Scott by overall in that poll of Republican-controlled state Senate districts. The poll was paid for by the Republican Party of Florida.

Perversely, the leaking of unflattering poll numbers about Scott is an act of self-preservation by Republicans.

They know what Crist, a former Republican governor, has the power to do if he wins: Divert a major portion of special-interest campaign money to the Florida Democratic Party and away from the Republican Party, which currently controls the state House and Senate.

With Crist in the governor’s mansion, Republican lawmakers probably would face tougher races to maintain control of the Legislature. GOP consultants might have less high-priced work. Republican lobbyists get less of a cut as Democratic lobbyists increase in importance in the state Capitol. . . .

And if the data don’t change soon, more Republicans will grow more concerned that the state of the state speech will be given next year by a Democrat for the first time since 1998.