Monday, January 30th, 2012 by Palm Beach Post Staff
Palm Beach Post government reporter Jennifer Sorentrue will be live tweeting from the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office on Tuesday, Jan. 31, from late afternoon until midnight with up-to-the-minute updates.
Make sure to bookmark this page to follow the live updates and see them scrolling in the box below.
Or, if the box is temporarily not loading, simply click here to follow Jennifer (@sorentruepbp) on Twitter.
With all eyes on Florida in the GOP presidential race, Senate President Mike Haridopolos might have been justified saying “I told you so” about the Sunshine State’s early Republican primary next week.
The legislature moved Florida’s primary date up from its originally scheduled date to Jan. 31 over the objections of state and national GOP leaders. Haridopolos and others wanted to elevate the state’s role in determining the eventual nominee.
With Newt Gingrich surging in the polls after unexpectedly trouncing Mitt Romney in South Carolina, Florida could be “the lynchpin to one person winning” the race, Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, said.
“Every once in a while it feels good to be right,” Haridopolos, a Romney backer, said this morning. “It was a risk, don’t get me wrong. But we thought it was a good risk. Clearly the eyes of the nation if not the eyes of the world are on this…I think it’s a good thing.”
And national coverage of the candidates stumping around sunny, mild-climed Florida may help solve some of the state’s budget problems as well, Haridopolos said.d
“This is like free advertising for our state and it wasn’t Visit Florida that had to pay the tab,” Haridopolos said.
Watching candidates “in their shirt sleeves” in sunny Florida may prompt Northerners to consider relocating their businesses to or visiting Florida, Haridopolos, a former New Yorker, said.
“So I think it’s been a jackpot,” Haridopolos said. “And I think we’re in the place where we deserve to be.”
Florida is the bellweather state in the general election and deserves to be so in the primaries, Haridopolos said, after the lesser-known candidates have been weeded out in Iowa and New Hampshire.
I love these kind of competitions – except when I’m in races. I like the ones where no one runs against me. It’s a lot more successful,” the former U.S. Senate candidate joked. “But to be serious. I think it’s good. I think this will elevate our candidate.”
An effort to move the date of Florida’s August primary is drawing mixed reviews among lawmakers and elections officials.
Citing concerns and questions, Senate Ethics & Elections Committee Chairman Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, postponed action by a subcommittee Monday on his bill (SB 1596) that would postpone the primary a week, from its scheduled Aug. 14, to Aug. 21.
Diaz de la Portilla said the proposed later date, which would also delay candidate qualifying a week until June 11-15, is aimed at giving those running in redistricted House, Senate and congressional districts more time to decide their political candidacies.
But the delay causes a host of other problems, according to some elections supervisors. Ron Labasky, lobbyist for the Florida Association of Supervisors of Election, said 22 of the 67 supervisors opposed the move — with some saying it could force them to rework contracts for polling places or cause personnel problems.
In Hillsborough County, elections officials have balked because the delay would push the primary election close to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Security for the convention is expected to cause wide-ranging traffic problems in the city’s downtown area, Labasky told the committee.
Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher is among those opposing the primary delay, saying she’s having enough trouble educating voters on new laws, new districts and revised requirements without throwing in a date change.
It’s the second time Scott’s hired a former secretary of state to head the department that oversees elections and cultural affairs.
Detzner briefly served as interim secretary of state under former Gov. Jeb Bush as well as chief of staff for former Secretary of State Jim Smith. He also spent six years working for Smith when Smith was the attorney general. Detzner recently helped the attorney general’s office handle claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.
Detzner spent 13 years lobbying for the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association and for the past decade has worked as a government consultant and lobbyist.
Detzner said he will work with Browning, who will stay on the job to oversee the Jan. 31 GOP presidential primary, until taking over as permanent secretary on Feb. 17.
“It’s very important that we have a smooth transition. Ken will do that. He has experience. Not only do we have to make sure we have a good 2012 election cycle but I know all of us want to make sure we have a good Viva 500,” Scott told reporters this morning after introducing Detzner, a well-known figure in the Capitol. Viva 500 is a year-long celebration of Juan Ponce de Leon’s landing in Florida.
Detzner said he was approached by Scott’s staff about the job while he was in the governor’s office representing one of his clients and he asked for 24 hours to consider it.
“It’s a high honor. I made two pledges. One for transparency and openness and fairness to all the parties that are involved with the secretary of state’s office. Very important to be fair and open and honest to every party that’s involved there,” he said.
Detzner called the post “one of the most fun jobs in state government” and said he withdrew as a lobbyist this morning.
“Oh gosh, I’m excited. This is one of the most fun jobs of state government. In addition to the really heavy responsibility, being involved with the elections process, cultural affairs, historic preservation, Viva 500 next year…
All a lot of fun things to do in government but the heavy burden, the responsibility of the elections is something that I’d be very much focused on,” he said.
Some elections supervisors had hoped to have one of their colleagues take over for Browning, who spent more than three decades as Pasco County elections supervisor but Scott said he is confident that Detzner is up to the job.
Secretary of State Kurt Browning is stepping down – for the second time – but will stay on the job long enough to oversee the Jan. 31 GOP presidential primary election.
Browning, who met briefly with Gov. Rick Scott today before announcing his resignation, has served twice as the state’s chief elections official. He worked for four years for Gov. Charlie Crist but took an early retirement in 2010 because of a new rule dealing with state workers collecting pensions while on the job.
Scott rehired Browning shortly after the governor took office in January. After six months off the state payroll, Browning was again eligible to work and collect retirement pay at the same time. Browning, who earns $139,999.92 a year, will stay until Feb. 17, after which he is considering a run for Pasco County school superintendent.
Browning told reporters Wednesday he did “a lot of soul-searching” over the holidays before deciding to step down, that he was not being forced out and that he hopes his replacement will take over before he leaves.
“I’ve always said the department of state ran well before I got here. It will run well after I’m gone,” Browning said.
Browning’s been involved in a high-profile federal lawsuit over the state’s new elections laws, and has been an outspoken critic of President Obama’s administration.
Florida voters so far have requested 413,000 absentee ballots for the Jan. 31 Republican presidential primary, says the Republican Party of Florida, which keeps daily tabs on ballot activity in the state’s 67 counties.
That total is roughly double the number of absentee ballots requested at the same stage before the 2008 Republican primary, said RPOF spokesman Brian Hughes, who called this year’s absentee ballot volume a sign of heightened GOP enthusiasm.
About 46,000 absentee ballots have been returned so far, Hughes said.
By comparison, about 122,000 people voted in last week’s Iowa caucuses and about 250,000 are expected for Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
In Palm Beach County, Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said her office has mailed out 6,331 Republican primary absentee ballots and voters have already returned 1,034.
Bucher said a handful of Michele Bachmann supporters called last week to ask for new absentee ballots after Bachmann dropped out. The voters said they had marked their ballots for Bachmann but hadn’t mailed them in. Voters can request do-over ballots, but once a ballot is mailed in, the elections office accepts whichever ballot it receives first and won’t count others, Bucher said.
Florida Republicans are narrowing their voter registration gap with Democrats as presidential primary season opens.
The state party said Friday that in December, there were 502,861 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida, a roughly 4.5 million to 4 million separation. But the margin is down from a 580,666 difference when 2011 opened — a 77,805 shift in the GOP’s favor.
Earlier this week was the deadline for Republicans to register to vote in Florida’s Jan. 31 primary, the nation’s largest, early nominating contest. The Florida Division of Elections said it will be Jan. 17 before it releases final voter totals for the primary.
“RPOF is working at the grassroots level to bring new voters, Democrats, and independent voters into our party,” said Chairman Lenny Curry. “We are also letting former Republicans know we want them to come back and join us to get Florida and the nation back on the path to prosperity.”
Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday announced a reshuffling of some staff positions as he heads into his second year in the executive office.
Carolyn Timmann, head of the governor’s open government office, is leaving with plans to run for circuit court clerk in Martin County, where she began her political career as an aide to former state Rep. Tom Warner, R-Stuart. Timmann is looking to succeed longtime Martin clerk Marsha Ewing, who announced plans not to seek her eighth term earlier this year.
In the governor’s office, Timmann will be replaced by Bonnie Hazelton, who did open government work for the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
Other changes: Tom Doughty will join the Executive Office of the Governor as Director of Information Technology, and Mike Dew and Julie Roberts have been promoted within the Governor’s Office of External Affairs.
Lake Worth Democratic Rep. Jeff Clemens said Wednesday that he will run for state Senate next year — likely in a central Palm Beach County district he expects to be created in once-a-decade redistricting.
Clemens, a former Lake Worth mayor elected to the House last year, has seen the voters in his current district fragmented into as many as four proposed House seats under maps drawn by that chamber. Clemens loses a sizable chunk of his district to a proposed Hispanic-oriented seat that all five of the House proposals would create in the Palm Springs-Lake Worth area.
Although the Senate’s own plan for redrawing itself does not include the central Palm Beach County Senate district in which Clemens envisions running, the lawmaker said he thinks final maps will.
“I believe these maps that have been produced are unconstitutional and that subsequent amendments and court proceedings will change them dramatically,” Clemens said. “If the final maps create a Senate district largely east of (Florida’s) Turnpike in central Palm Beach County, I intend to run for the Senate.”
The Senate’s sole redistricting plan so far actually reduces from six to five the number of Senate districts that course through Palm Beach County. But it does turn District 34, a Broward-Miami-Dade County district held by term-limited Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston into a Palm Beach County-dominated seat.
Rep. Joe Abruzzo, D-Wellington, is looking to run in that seat — if it endures.
“I have no intention of running against Joe Abruzzo,” Clemens said Wednesday.
Instead, Clemens expects either the Legislature — or the courts, under expected challenges — to draw the district where he plans to be a candidate next fall.
“Obviously, there are a lot of if’s to this,” Clemens said.
A measure doing away with a century-old prohibition on using state funds for religious purposes is back on the November 2012 ballot, for now, after Attorney General Pam Bondi rewrote the proposal using a Tallahassee judge’s guidance.
Circuit Judge Terry Lewis last week tossed the proposed “Religious Freedom” constitutional amendment, placed on next year’s November ballot by lawmakers, saying it was misleading because it left the impression that it would “make it a lot harder for the state to deny funding or program benefits to a sectarian institution.”
Under a new election law signed by Gov. Rick Scott this spring, Bondi had 10 days to rewrite the ballot summary. She crafted the revised measure as Lewis suggested in his Dec. 13 ruling by deleting the phrase “consistent with the United States Constitution” and inserting “except as required by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Critics say the amendment makes it easier for the GOP-dominated legislature and executive branch to steer taxpayer money to religious entities, including schools. The amendment’s ballot summary would change Florida’s constitution to ensure that “no individual or entity may be denied, on the basis of religious identity or belief, governmental benefits, funding, or other support.” At least 60 percent of voters must approve the measure for it to pass.
The plaintiffs in the case, including religious leaders and the Florida teachers’ union, also tried but failed to get Lewis to strike down the law allowing the attorney general to revise the summary if a court strikes it down as misleading. Bondi’s rewrite Tuesday is the first time the new law giving her that ability has been used.
A coalition of groups – including the League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote and the ACLU - filed a federal lawsuit today against the state over an election law overhaul now being reviewed by a separate federal court in Washington.
The groups are challenging the provision in the law that they say makes it more difficult for groups to conduct voter registration drives.
The lawsuit argues that the new law, signed by Gov. Rick Scott this spring, is an unconstitutional restriction on the rights of speech and association, is confusing and violates the National Voter Registration Act.
After more than 70 years helping to register voters in the state, the League of Women Voters of Florida quit its voter registration efforts after the law went into effect in May. The lawsuit argues that the league dropped its efforts out of “fear they will be unable to comply with the laws myriad requirements and cannot afford to risk incurring large fines or enduring the reputational harms that would result from even an innocent violation.”
The Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, also part of the lawsuit, argues that the new law will make it more expensive for them to register college students to vote. Rock The Vote, a national group that targets voters between the ages of 18 and 29, said it has called off registration drives in Florida because it lacks the resources the new law requires.
The lawsuit also argues that the new law disproportionately affects low-income and minority voters, who tend to sign up to vote through registration drives more than other groups. Critics of the law, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, say Florida’s law, one of 14 across the nation passed by GOP-dominated legislatures and governors this year, is designed to make it harder for low-income, minority and college student voters to register and cast their ballots.
A federal judge in Miami threw out a separate challenge on the law in October, saying it was too early to see whether the new law would be harmful. The ACLU was trying in that case to keep the law from going into effect statewide until it received federal approval for five counties requiring “preclearance” under the Voting Rights Act.
After slashing education spending by $1.3 billion earlier this year, Gov. Rick Scott is now asking school superintendents to help get his $1 billion budget boost for public schools passed. And he reiterated his vow to veto any budget that “does not significantly increase state funding for education” in a letter to school superintendents sent today.
“If you support the budget I am proposing, please let your legislators know. Now that I have presented my budget recommendations, it’s their turn to listen, just as I have done. Please join me in advocating for the children of our state and Florida’s economic future,” Scott wrote.
More than 30,000 new students will enroll in Florida public schools, requiring an additional $200 million over current spending, Scott wrote. And school districts are facing a $220 million reduction in ad valorem taxes, meaning lawmakers will have to pump nearly $500 million more into education to break even.
His plan would bring average per-pupil spending in Florida to $6,372, a $142 increase over the current year but still well below the $7,126 high in 2008.
“As I have listened to the challenges described by teachers, parents and administrators during the past few months, all have urged me to increase the state’s commitment to education. That is my plan, and I ask for your help in making that plan a reality for Florida’s students,” Scott wrote.
The governor once again threw down the gauntlet to lawmakers, many of whom have balked at his plan to beef up education spending by squeezing $2 billion out of Medicaid payments to hospitals.
“Every educator, student, parent and business leader should know: I will not sign a budget from the Legislature that does not significantly increase state funding for education,” Scott wrote.
A Leon County judge Wednesday removed from the November ballot a proposed amendment that would have let state money flow to religious institutions, lifting a prohibition in place since 1885.
But Circuit Judge Terry Lewis’ decision won’t be the last word. Under a new law approved last spring, Attorney General Pam Bondi know gets 10 days to rewrite the ballot proposal — meaning it is still likely to go before voters in November.
The state’s largest teachers union as well as several religious clergy had urged that Lewis not only remove the proposed amendment, arguing that the ballot title and summary language of Amendment 7 will mislead voters, but also erase the new attorney general’s provision as unconstitutional.
Lewis agreed with opponents’ amendment argument. But he let the rewrite by the executive branch stand. But the teachers’ union was quick to declare victory.
“Amendment 7 would have required taxpayers to fund a broad array of religious programs and institutions,” said AndyFord, president of the Florida Education Association. “The judge agreed that taxpayers and voters need to be told the truth and that the purpose and effect of the amendment was not clear in the ballot summary and was misleading to voters.”
Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, was among the sponsors of the measure (CS/HJR 1471), approved mostly along party lines in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Plakon and other supporters said the measure was designed merely to remove discriminatory language from the state’s Constitution, which they say is rooted in 19th Century anti-Catholic fervor. Florida is among more than 35 states with such so-called Blaine amendments, named for a former Maine congressman who proposed such a restriction in the U.S. Constitution.
Despite the prohibition, the Legislature already directs millions of public dollars each year to religious-affiliated organizations in Florida to serve foster children, prison inmates, and low-income and elderly Floridians.
The Florida Supreme Court has never embraced a hard-line interpretation of the Blaine prohibition. Instead, earlier rulings allowed such spending if it promotes the general welfare, as opposed to advancing religious doctrine.
Just days before Florida holds its first election under a voter law blasted by Democrats, a Senate panel announced Monday it will hold a hearing in Tampa to gauge public reaction to the new measure.
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson spearheaded the call for fellow Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois to bring his Judiciary subcommittee on Constitution and Civil Rights to the state. The panel is scheduled to hold a hearing Jan. 27 in Tampa, four days before Florida’s Republican presidential primary.
Tampa’s Hillsborough County is among five Florida counties where voting law changes must be approved by the federal Justice Department because past racial conditions threatened voting rights. Nelson said, “The community has many diverse groups of voters that might be affected the most under Florida’s new law, like seniors, young voters and minorities. One recent and credible study says new laws like Florida’s could suppress millions of votes nationwide in the 2012 election.”
Democrats have pushed hard against voter laws approved in Florida and 13 other Republican-ruled states which they say are aimed at blunting Democratic turnout in next year’s presidential contest.
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Davie, earlier this month announced that the party has launched a new website www.protectingthevote.org aimed at informing voters of the new standards — and rallying support for having them overturned.
Florida’s law is already the subject of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and voting rights organizations.
Supporters of the state’s new law deny any partisan motivation, instead saying the stricter standards are merely intended to reduce the risk of voter-fraud.
The new measure reduces the number of days available for early voting, while also imposes tighter reporting standards for third-party groups that register voters. But a study earlier this year by the Brennan Center for Justice found that Florida’s law is part of a larger mosaic of stricter standards which could keep 5 million people nationwide from voting next year.
Al Sharpton took state Rep. Dennis Baxley to task over Florida’s new election law on Sharpton’s Politics Nation show on MSNBC tonight.
The sharp-tongued Sharpton, a Democrat, lambasted Baxley, the former head of the state’s Christian Coalition, over changes to the election laws, similar to changes GOP-dominated legislatures approved in more than a dozen states this year. Critics, including Sharpton, say the new laws make it more difficult for minorities and college students – who helped President Obama move into the White House three years ago – to cast their votes. At the urging of U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and some of fellow Democrats, a Congressional hearing in Florida on the election law is in the works.
Baxley and others contend the new laws are aimed at preventing voter fraud. But Sharpton challenged Baxley over the fraud issue, saying Florida had only 31 cases of election fraud since the 2008 election.
“You didn’t have laws after hanging chads and other means disrupted this country in 2000…Is it really because young people and minorities started voting and registering in big numbers and this is the new way that you’re going to try and restrict people’s voting rights?” an incensed Sharpton demanded.
“I don’t see why you have to impugn other people’s motives. You may not like some of the content…but I think it makes…people more secure,” a relaxed Baxley, R-Ocala, said. (Baxley later corrected Sharpton – Florida lawmakers enacted a slew of new voting laws in the aftermath of the protracted 2000 election.)
“If it wasn’t broke why are you fixing it other than this is some political game?” Sharpton persisted.
Baxley said the new laws will protect elections from “from mishap and mischief” and pointed out that “Mickey Mouse” had registered to vote in Florida.
That only provoked Sharpton.
“If you’ve got to get Mickey Mouse to make your case…then believe me you’re trying to take all of us to Disney World for a ride,” he said.
Watch the the two tangle over the League of Women Voters, which stopped registering voters in Florida because of the new law, before the clip ends. Sharpton interviewed Florida LOWV president Deidre MacNab before Baxley came on.
The most controversial portions of Florida’s elections law are now under review by a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. The League and other groups are asking that the court reject the changes.
Democratic challenger Lois Frankel wasted little time Thursday challenging speculation that U.S. Rep. Allen West could head north — out of a redrawn, Democratic-leaning district and into a primary fight with fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney.
West’s chief of staff, Jonathan Blyth, downplayed talk Wednesday among Republican consultants that his boss was looking for friendlier turf, with the Plantation congressman eyeing the political backyard of Rooney, who lives in Tequesta.
Frankel, though, seized on the chatter, serving up some political trash talk.
“It looks like Mr. West is afraid of a real fight, which is what he will get when he faces me in a general election,” said Frankel, who faces a Democratic primary contest with Broward County accountant Patrick Murphy. “Mr. West: don’t cut and run…stay and fight. I am not retreating to anywhere. I am staying right here.”
Blyth later fired back at Frankel.
“Congressman West is a 22- year veteran of the U.S. Army who served in real combat against enemies of our nation,” Blyth said. “Lt. Colonel West has never cut and run protecting and defending citizens of our nation.”
Democrats continued Thursday to blast new voter laws in Florida and 13 other states which they say have been crafted by Republican leaders to blunt turnout and damage President Obama’s re-election bid next year.
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a member of Congress from Davie, said the party has launched a new website www.protectingthevote.org aimed at informing voters of the new standards — and rallying support for having them overturned. Florida’s law is already the subject of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and voting rights organizations.
A U.S. Senate subcommittee also plans to hold a hearing in Florida in coming weeks on the new law, following a request by Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who said the state’s new standard violates “basic rights.”
In a conference call with reporters Thursday, Wasserman Schultz said Republicans are out to “rig elections.”
“By now, it’s well known they’re determined to roll back the right to vote and skew the 2012 presidential election,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Democrats and their allies have blistered the new Florida law, which reduces turnout by reducing the number of days available for early voting, while also imposing tighter reporting standards for third-party groups that register voters.
A study earlier this year by the Brennan Center for Justice found the new laws could keep 5 million people nationwide from voting next year.
Supporters of the measures deny any partisan motivation, instead saying the stricter standards are intended to reduce voter-fraud.
Wasserman Schultz, though, isn’t buying that.
A 74-page report released Thursday by the Democratic Party concluded, “every major investigation into voter fraud in the United States has arrived at the same conclusion: There is almost none. The real fraud has been the use of baseless allegations to change election laws in ways that will lead to partisan Republican gains.”
Embattled GOP presidential contender Herman Cain‘s Sunshine State supporters are in a wait-and-see mode while the campaign decides on its next move in the wake of allegations of a decade-long extramarital affair, Cain’s Florida campaign co-chairman Rep. Scott Plakon said Tuesday.
But Plakon said that, if what Cain says is true and he did not have a 13-year affair with Ginger White, Cain should stay in. And if that’s the case, he’s got Plakon’s support.
“If it turns out that all he had was 61 text messages, that seems like a pretty lousy reason o drive someone out of the presidential race…To say he should get out because of that I can speak for myself. I just don’t roll that way,” Plakon, R-Longwood, said.
And, Plakon said, Cain’s Florida supporters are on hold but haven’t bailed after the latest round of accusations.
“We haven’t heard anybody calling to say, ‘I’m out of here.’ He’s so well-liked people are willing to see what the reassessment looks like over the next few days,” Plakon said.
Plakon, who said he was on the conference call with Cain’s national advisors Tuesday morning, said the accusations alone should not force Cain to step aside.
“He says he didn’t do these things. And if that is true, to be forced out of this race over allegations that aren’t true would be truly unfortunate and I think would be bad for our country. We have a long tradition in the country. You should be presumed innocent until you’re found guilty,” he said. “If it turns out that all he had was 61 text messages, that seems like a pretty lousy reason o drive someone out of the presidential race…To say he should get out because of that I can speak for myself. I just don’t roll that way.”
If the allegations are true, however, Cain should drop out, Plakon said.
“If he did have a 13-year affair, then he should get out. But I take him at his word. And he said he didn’t do it. So unless proof comes forward, I don’t think these things should chase a presidential candidate in the top tier out of the race,” he said.
The latest set of accusations are sure to hamper Cain, once a favorite among GOP voters but whose star plummeted in the wake of the first round of accusations of sexual harassment earlier this month.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi will co-host the GOP presidential debate on Fox News this weekend, according to a press release distributed by the Republican Party of Florida this morning.
Bondi, a Fox fave who often appeared on the news channel as a legal analyst before her election in January and a frequent guest star since, will join fellow Republican attorneys general Ken Kuccinelli of Virginia and E. Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s show Saturday night at 8 p.m.
Bondi is leading the charge in the multi-state federal health care lawsuit, launched by her predecessor Bill McCollum, now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Undoing the health care law is among the GOP presidential wannabes’ top campaign pledges.
“This forum is an excellent opportunity to engage each of the candidates in a candid conversation about issues that are important to voters in our state and across the nation,” Bondi said in the press release. “This will be a historic election, and I am excited to play a part in helping voters gain a better understanding of candidates’ beliefs on fundamental issues such as constitutionalism and the role of government.”
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum have all agreed to participate in the forum, according to the release.
Democrats unleashed an attack ad – “Trapped” – targeting Mitt Romney in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama. The movie trailer-style TV ad portrays Romney’s political career as “the story of two men trapped in one body” and directs viewers to a longer, online ad entitled “Mitt v. Mitt”
The ads characterize the former Massachusetts governor “for what he truly is: a flip-flopper, a candidate without core beliefs, and someone who’s simply without conviction,” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told reporters on a conference call this morning.
“The American people appreciate that there are many different points of view in our diverse nation. That is something that people expect. They just don’t expect one candidate to espouse all of them,” Wasserman Schultz, a Congresswoman from Weston, said.
Democrats are feverishly portraying Romney, in Florida on fundraising sweep tonight and tomorrow, as inconsistent in an effort to peel off support from conservative GOP voters with six weeks until Republicans begin choosing their nominee. They’re targeting Romney although recent polls show Newt Gingrich at the top of the GOP pack.
The DNC ad, showing contradictory clips of Romney on health care and abortion, is running in Albuquerque, N.M., Raleigh, N.C., Columbus, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Washington.
“From the creator of `I’m running for office for Pete’s sake,’ comes the story of two men trapped in one body,” the ad says.
The four-minute video, entitled “Mitt versus Mitt,” also includes clips of Romney reversing his positions on issues.
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
