Commentary magazine, which was founded by the American Jewish Committee in the 1940s and became a key incubator for neoconservatism in the 1970s under Norman Podhoretz, is raving about Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio’s Thursday speech on Israel and foreign policy in West Delray.
“It is frankly the best speech on Israel since George W. Bush went to the Knesset,” enthuses Jennifer Rubin, who recommends reading the entire text.
To read The Palm Beach Post‘s coverage, click here.
Attorney General Bill McCollum is asking BP to put $2.5 billion into an interest-earning escrow account to cover the state’s losses from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
McCollum’s requests is the latest in Florida candidates’ string of demands for cash from the oil giant.
McCollum and the other Florida Cabinet members were less than pleased with some of British Petroleum Vice President Robert Fryar’s Tuesday appearance before the panel.
Fryar told McCollum he did not know if BP has earmarks any funds to pay claims to Florida government, citizens or businesses resulting from the April 20 disaster.
Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio is in west Delray Beach this afternoon to speak to the Republican Jewish Coalition and make what his campaign bills as a major speech on foreign policy and Israel.
About 300 people are at the South County Civic Center — twice the crowd Democratic Senate Kendrick Meek drew here last month in one of the county’s most Democratic areas.
See advance excerpts of Rubio’s speech after the jump….
Former health care exec Rick Scott of Naples, who entered the race in April, holds a 44-to-31 percent lead over Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for governor, the poll says.
And Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who filed April 30, is in a virtual tie with U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek for the Democratic Senate nomination. Meek holds a 29-to-27 percent edge with 37 percent undecided. Former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre gets 3 percent.
“Mothers may tell their children that money can’t buy happiness, but what these results show is that money can buy enough television ads to make political neophytes serious contenders for major political office,” says Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown.
The poll also finds strong support among Floridians for Arizona’s new crackdown on illegal immigration — an issue Scott has featured in his barrage of ads.
Democratic Senate hopeful Maurice Ferre talked health care during a visit with The Palm Beach Post editorial board today and said the U.S. should eventually adopt a Medicare-for-all system that includes government price-setting and spending caps based on age and medical condition.
“I would absolutely say that this is the cap on how much is available for you to spend at age 90, 87, with a heart condition of this sort, with diabetes of this sort, two legs missing and, you know, this is how much is available for you to spend. And you spend it any way you want,” said Ferre, who is 75.
A new Rasmussen poll shows independent Gov. Charlie Crist and Republican Marco Rubio tied at 37 percent in the U.S. Senate race with Democrat Kendrick Meek a distant third at 15 percent.
Substitute Jeff Greene for Meek as the Democratic nominee and Crist gets 41 percent, Rubio stays at 37 percent and and Greene draws 13 percent.
The Rasmussen poll of 500 likely voters was conducted Monday and has a 4.5 percent margin of error.
Earlier today, a Quinnipiac University poll showed Crist narrowly leading Rubio in the three-way Senate race with Meek or Greene below 20 percent.
Republican Meg Whitman’s win in Tuesday’s California GOP governor’s primary was managed by Jillian Hasner, the GOP operative who’s also the wife of state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton. Jillian Hasner’s California gig was a factor in her hubby’s decision not to run for office this year despite facing House term limits.
Whitman’s win is also being used by Florida Democrat Kendrick Meek’s U.S. Senate campaign to question the partisan loyalty of his Democratic primary rival, Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene. Greene contributed $5,000 to Whitman’s campaign last year.
“Congratulations billionaire Jeff Greene — your endorsed candidate for California governor Republican Meg Whitman won her primary last night. One year ago, you sent a $5,000 dollar check to Whitman, a conservative Republican who favors increasing restrictions on a woman’s right to choose and supports repealing environmental and climate reforms,” said Meek spokesman Adam Sharon in a release this morning.
The newest Quinnipiac University poll shows independent Gov. Charlie Crist leading a three-way U.S. Senate race with 37 percent to 33 percent for Republican Marco Rubio and 17 percent for Democrat Kendrick Meek.
If Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene is the Democratic Senate nominee, Crist gets 40 percent, Rubio stays at 33 and Greene gets 14 percent, according to the poll of 1,133 voters taken June 1 through Monday with a 2.9 percent margin of error.
In a three-way race for governor, either Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum (33 percent) or Republican businessman Rick Scott (35 percent) tops the field over Democrat Alex Sink and no-party candidate Bud Chiles. That portion of the poll had a 435-voter sample and a 4.7 percent margin of error.
Florida voters oppose increasing offshore drilling by a 51-to-42 percent margin in the poll — compared to 66-27 support in April before the Deepwater Horizon spill.
President Obama’s approval rating is 40 percent, with 54 percent of Floridians disapproving. That’s his all-time low in the state and down from a 50-to-45 percent positive score in April.
A bill requiring a woman to pay for an ultrasound before getting an abortion is now headed to Gov. Charlie Crist, who can sign it, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.
The expectation among politics-watchers has been that Republican-turned-independent Crist will veto HB 1143 in keeping with his drift from conservative-sounding GOP Senate primary hopeful to Democrat-courting independent candidate.
If Crist vetoes the bill, however, he can expect cries of hypocrisy from the right and left.
Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio’s campaign is already highlighting the old “Charlie Crist on Pro-Life/Family” page that’s been yanked from his indie campaign website. And Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek has posted the above clip of Crist touting his “pro-life, pro-gun, pro-family” credentials as a Republican in February.
Amid the saturation advertising by Democratic Senate hopeful Jeff Greene and Republican governor hopeful Rick Scott in recent weeks, we neglected to mention that state Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, was the first local legislative candidate to make a significant TV buy with this 30-second spot for his state Senate campaign. The ad just finished a two-week run.
Like Greene and Scott, Domino is wealthy and has put significant amounts of his own money into his primary race against state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale. Unlike the Greene and Scott ads that have aired so far, Domino comes across as a guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. While impish background music plays throughout, Domino holds up a foam Florida State No. 1 finger, notes that he “married a woman way too good for me” and ends up barefoot in a blue suit in the ocean.
Hometown Democracy Chairwoman Lesley Blackner says she didn’t know the phrase “step & fetch it” carried negative racial connotations when she used it in an e-mail to a Volusia County official last month.
Hometown Democracy is behind Amendment 4, a statewide ballot question that would require local governments to get voter approval before making any amendment to a comprehensive land use plan. In a May 13 e-mail to the director of the Volusia Council of Governments, Blackner wrote “I’m only too aware of your step & fetch it for the Chamber of Commerce crowd opposing Amendment 4.”
Both Blackner and the person to whom she addressed the e-mail are white.
The phrase is generally associated with black actor Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, a Key West native who used the stage name Stepin Fetchit in portraying shuffling, mumbling, servile movie characters in the 1930s and ’40s.
Former South Bay Mayor Clarence Anthony, an Amendment 4 opponent who is black, issued a statement today blasting Blackner for using “a term that is historically synonymous with degrading, racist stereotypes.”
Blackner, 50, said “I’ve used the phrase for years and had no idea anybody thought it had any racial overtones. If Mr. Anthony is offended, I’m sorry….I tell you what, I won’t use that term any more.”
The Democratic Senate campaigns of Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene have tentatively agreed to debate on June 22 and have sent a joint letter to TV stations in the West Palm Beach market in search of a host.
The letter identifies the Meek and Greene camps as “the two major Democratic campaigns for U.S. Senate,” which leaves two other Dems — former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre and Naples businessman Glenn Burkett — out in the cold.
UPDATE: Mayor Lois Frankel didn’t directly answer a question about the poll, telling a reporter “When I’m ready to talk about if and what I’m going to do, I’m going to let you know.”
Tongues are wagging again in West Palm Beach over the latest round of political polling calls, which included lots of questions about Mayor Lois Frankel and the term limits law that will prevent her from seeking a third term in March 2011.
Respondents over the weekend were asked their opinions of Frankel, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and former West Palm Beach Mayor Nancy Graham. They were also asked about the city’s term-limits law and whether it should be scrapped or extended to three four-year terms instead of two for the mayor. There were also questions about the pay dispute between the city and the police union.
The Police Benevolent Association did conduct a poll a few weeks back. But PBA leaders say they’re not behind this poll.
Frankel couldn’t immediately be reached this morning.
For Frankel to run for a third term in March, voters would have to change the city charter. The most likely scenario for doing that would be through a referendum on the November ballot. To get a question on the ballot, the county Elections Office says it would need language by mid-August.
For that to happen, a petition drive to force a ballot question would have to begin soon.
He no longer has the fund-raising and organizational might of a political party to help his Senate camapign, but Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist has the ability to schedule bill-signing ceremonies before key groups.
With the help of Democratic state Rep. Maria Sachs and Sen. Jeremy Ring, Crist has been eyeing a tour of the Palm Beach-Broward Democratic condo belt to ceremonially sign a condominium reform bill. Events at Century Village of West Palm Beach and Wynmoor of Coconut Creek were penciled in last week before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill forced Crist to change plans. Sachs and Ring say the signings could be rescheduled for this week or next.
Read about it in this week’s Politics column, where you’ll also find out why one local lawmaker has earned the nickname “Joey Eleven” and where you can catch up on the congressional primary between two candidates who have been Democrats for six weeks.
Stimulus pals, Gulf visitors and SKD Knickerbocker clients Crist and Obama.
Charlie Crist’s hiring of the SKD Knickerbocker media firm is another sign the Republican-turned-indie guv is making a serious play for Democratic votes in his U.S. Senate bid.
Crist has already signed “fire-breathing liberal” Democrat Robert Wexler’s former political consultant, Eric Johnson, to help him in Dem-heavy South Florida.
SKD Knickerbocker’s partners include Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and its website boasts that it has “helped countless Democratic candidates and campaigns navigate tough races and win.”
Its client roster includes Obama, Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown and Jay Rockefeller, Orlando-area Democratic U.S. Rep. Suzanne Kosmas and the para-Democratic Service Employees International Union.
The firm has also handled big-time indie campaigns for Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
There’s been increased speculation lately about term-limited West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel running for the Palm Beach County Commission seat of term-limited Democrat Jeff Koons.
But in order to run for the commission and remain mayor through November, Frankel would have to submit a resign-to-run letter by today. Frankel late this afternoon said she has not written such a letter and isn’t planning to.
If an elected official seeks another office and the terms overlap, state law requires the official to write a letter setting a resignation date and submit the letter 10 days before the start of the candidate qualifying period. Qualifying for state and county offices begins June 14 and ends June 18.
Senate President Jeff Atwater, for instance, submitted a letter today setting his resignation for Nov. 2 so he can run for chief financial officer.
Frankel could still run for county commission. But after today, doing so would require her to resign as mayor immediately.
With Gov. Charlie Crist making a late cancellation to attend an oil spill powwow in Louisiana with President Obama, state Reps. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, and Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, filled in as speakers at today’s Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch.
Responding to an audience question about partisan rancor, Sachs said Domino “has really become the most bipartisan Republican in the Florida House.”
Working with the other party isn’t necessarily seen as a virtue in a competitive partisan primary like the one Domino faces against state Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, for a state Senate seat.
“In this political atmosphere, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Domino said of Sachs’ remark. “I’ll take it as a good thing.”
Federal officials took just one day to approve Gov. Charlie Crist’s request for a determination of a Florida fishery failure because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Crist asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to grant the determination yesterday, when he also flew over the Panhandle and eyeballed at one oil sheen less than four miles off the shoreline.
Charter boat captains and commercial fishermen say their livelihoods have plummeted in the aftermath of the oil spill. State officials have kept state fishing waters – up to nine miles from the coast in some areas – remain open but federal officials have closed off an ever-growing portion of their waters to commercial and recreational fishing.
The Panhandle’s snapper three-week snapper season, one of the most lucrative times of the year for the tourist region, kicked off on Tuesday.
The fishery failure determination means that fishermen and other impacted businesses will be eligible for federal small business loans to help cover their economic damages.
Crist will be in New Orleans with President Barack Obama today for more on the oil leak and recovery efforts.
While his friend and political patron, Gov. Charlie Crist, defends the Obama administration’s response to the gulf oil spill, Republican U.S. Sen. George LeMieux says the president needs to imitate former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and take a more hands-on approach.
“What we’ve seen over the past 42 days is, to me, a real dereliction of duty by this administration,” LeMieux said in an interview Thursday night. “The president comes down twice for photo ops and then goes back home to go golfing in Chicago.
“I think back to when Jeb Bush was governor. He was on the ground working the problems of those nine hurricanes, 10 hurricanes that we had in ’04 and ’05. And I want to see that kind of leadership in my president. I don’t want him outsourcing it or delegating it to BP or even delegating it to his cabinet members.
“We elected him. He’s a very bright guy. He needs to show leadership. He needs to be on the ground pushing for solutions like Jeb Bush was during all those hurricanes.”
Gov. Charlie Crist will appear on CNN’s John King, USA tonight and discuss the gulf oil spill.
Asked about President Obama’s response, Crist says, “Well, I think the president is doing everything he can. You know, from my perspective, he’s been here a number of times. I’m sure he’ll continue to come back, that’s important for the administration to do. And they’re doing daily phone calls with the governors in the affected area.
“You know, it has to be all hands on deck, we have to be working together, we have to work together in order to try to stem the tide of what we’re dealing with here. I don’t think it’s the time to be pointing fingers, I think it’s a time for us to come together, work together and do everything we can to protect the Gulf states and in my case, Florida.”
Crist also addresses the arrest of former state GOP Chairman Jim Greer at the end of the show.
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