Talking tough on illegal immigration helped Rick Scott score an upset Republican primary win in last year’s Florida governor’s race. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is betting the issue will sour GOP primary voters in Florida and elsewhere on Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who supports granting in-state college tuition rates to children of illegal immigrants in Texas.
A new web video from the Romney campaign associates Perry’s position with President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and features a clip of former Mexican President Vicente Fox praising Perry for the Texas policy.
There’s also a clip of Perry from last week’s GOP debate in Orlando saying opponents of the program “don’t have a heart” — a statement that angered many conservatives as much as the program itself.
Palm Beach County Democratic Chairman Mark Alan Siegel, who invited U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner to be the keynote speaker for the local party’s annual fund-raising dinner last fall, had a Sophoclean take on today’s news that the crotch-tweeting New York Democrat is resigning.
“This is like a classic Greek tragedy — great hero, fatal flaw, hubris, disaster,” said Siegel, a former New York state Senator who has known Weiner for more than a decade.
Pelosi and President Obama favor allowing the tax rates to increase for individuals earning $200,000 and couples making $250,000 a year.
Klein, facing a tough challenge from Republican Allen West, was also one of at least 38 House Dems who recently called for a short-term extension of the Bush income tax cuts for everyone, including wealthy filers.
U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, was one of many Democrats who favored letting the Bush tax cuts expire for upper-income earners.
But Klein and 30 other Democrats have signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asking that all the Bush tax cuts be extended. Many of the signers, including Klein, face tough reelection fights this fall.
TV personality and attorney Star Jones has recorded a get-out-the-vote robocall for Jeff Greene as next week’s Democratic Senate primary looms. Greene’s rival, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, has been getting telephonic support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
According to celeb politics tracker Newsmeat.com, Jones’ previous political activity includes donating $1,250 to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Democratic presidential campaign.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the latest big-name Dem to vouch for establishment favorite Kendrick Meek in his Aug. 24 Democratic Senate primary against Palm Beach investor Jeff Greene.
The Meek camp is touting this robocall recorded by Pelosi on Meek’s behalf. Meek will campaign with former President Bill Clinton in Delray Beach, Davie and Miami on Monday. And Meek will be “joining” President Obama in some capacity Wednesday when Obama comes to Miami for a fund-raiser.
Republican congressional hopeful Allen West, already a YouTube star with a 2.1-million-view video from late 2009, has drawn more than 46,000 looks in three days for this posting by the conservative Shark Tank blog from Saturday’s opening of a campaign headquarters in Deerfield Beach.
“We are going to show them what committed and convicted Americans have always done since the days we stood up against the British republic,” West tells supporters. “This is about fighting a dishonest tyranny, fighting against people that will lie to the American people and say we’re doing all this for the betterment of your lives when all they are doing is creating more slaves so that they can have control over them.”
West is challenging U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, but his strongest words in this clip are aimed at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
When he’s elected and goes to Washington, West says, “I’m going to say one simple thing to Nancy Pelosi: Give me that damn gavel.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will be in Palm Beach County on Friday to raise money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at some private events, a Pelosi spokesman said.
Pelosi is expected to raise money for the DCCC and not for specific candidates. While there’s a special congressional election in Palm Beach and Broward counties next week to replace U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, Dems are more concerned about upcoming special elections in Hawaii and Pennsylvania.
WEST PALM BEACH — Attorney General and GOP governor candidate Bill McCollum dropped by tonight’s Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee powwow and sounded at first like a federal candidate before throwing his likely Democratic opponent, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, into the mix.
“In Washington, President Obama and his administration and some of the friends we have over there like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are more worried about growing government than they are about growing jobs,” McCollum said. Sink, he added, “believes that the public should hold Tallahassee accountable for creating jobs. Jobs shouldn’t created by government, whether it’s the state or federal. Jobs are created by small businesses.”
McCollum also got a standing ovation when he repeated his pledge to use his position as AG to sue the federal government if Congress approves a health care overhaul that includes a requirement for individuals to purchase insurance.
Democratic St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft, who’s challenging U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, in a Republican-leaning district, said Wednesday he’s “deeply concerned” that President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders might bypass a formal House-Senate conference on health care and hash out a private deal.
Craft is running as a “moderate and independent voice” in a district that voted for Republican John McCain in 2008. So he raised some eyebrows in the fall when he said he supported the House health care bill. That bill passed on a 220-to-215 vote in which most Dems from McCain districts voted no.
“When this issue started to resurface I called the appropriate people in the agency and said I would like to know the dates from your records that briefings were held,” Graham recalled.
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