Saint Petersblog 2.0

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Excuse me, Mr. Wagman, but how exactly do you plan on paying for 100 more cops?

Scott Wagman's comprehension of public policy pales in comparison to his knowledge of what accent color goes well with cornflower blue, but the first-time candidate hasn't shied away from making ridiculous proposals.

This is the candidate whose very first policy position was to call for a moratorium on any and all spending for new parks, despite the fact that such spending comes from an earmarked fund established only for that purpose.

This is the candidate who suggested it was okay to "bulldoze" the St. Petersburg Pier.

This is the candidate who said he would fire the police chief (yet denies saying he would bring the Sheriff) without having met with Chuck Harmon.

This is the candidate, after all, who is proud of being endorsed by Councilman Wengay Newton, the bane of smart local government.

I guess when you are jackpot-rich with paint-can money, you don't need sensible public policy. Just "work hard, give back, make a difference" (a line that originated at about the same time as "Let them eat cake.")

But, unlike his role model Michael Bloomberg, Wagman cannot finance an entire city budget. That's why I have a simple question for Scott Wagman. How exactly are you going to follow through on this pledge:

The city's budget is already stretched to the breaking point and, yet, somehow, Wagman believes City Hall is capable of paying for another 100 cops on the street.

Sure, it's a noble goal, but St. Petersburg has had trouble just reaching its current sworn strength.

Just doing the math on a napkin, I figure each cop costs the city, what $75K a year? Multiply that by 100 and we are talking about adding $7.5 million to a budget that had to be cut by almost twice that amount this year.

Basically, Scott Wagman wants us to build a new garage on our house even though we can barely afford to pay the electricity bill.

Tampa Bay legislators' fundraising

Not much to report for the incumbents...no one has done any damage yet in the race to replace Kevin Ambler in H-47...perhaps Peter Nehr will have problems with Tom McKone in H-48, but other than that it's standard fare for Pinellas legislators. Here are their fundraising numbers to date:

H-48
Peter Nehr raised $13,900 with $12,581 left on hand
Tom McKone raised $5,071 with $3,533 left on hand

H-49: Darren Soto raised $4,600 with $3,850 left on hand

H-50: Ed Hooper raised $7,100 with $6,624 left on hand

H-51: Janet Long raised $25,975 with $20,747 left on hand

H-52: Bill Heller raised $6,550 with $4,963 left on hand

H-53: Rick Kriseman raised $13,300 with $8,274 left on hand

H-54: Jim Frishe raised $2,000 with $2,000 left on hand

H-55: Darry Rouson raised $11,800 with $8,827 left on hand

H-57: Todd Marks raised $26,941 with $23,667 left on hand

H-58: Michael Scionti raised $31,225 with $13,501 left on hand

Monday, July 13, 2009

Times Ed Board chastises Wagman, Foster for position on police car chases

Two candidates for St. Petersburg mayor seem to care more about garnering the endorsement of the city's police than in the safety of motorists and pedestrians.

Former City Council member Bill Foster and businessman Scott Wagman said they would alter the current no-chase policy of the St. Petersburg Police Department that restricts officers from instigating a car chase except when pursuing violent felons. The candidates said they would allow pursuit of nonviolent suspects, even though a looser standard would undoubtedly lead to more injuries and deaths of innocents.

Daily Kos weighs in on Aronberg v. Gelber

Daily Kos weighs in: Dan Gelber is well positioned in his bid to become Florida Attorney General. A Federal Prosecutor who is strong on White Colllar Crime and Public Corruption, Gelber has served as the Minority House Leader and has proven to be one of the most ardent supporters of Education. After announcing his intention to run, Gelber swiftly racked up a number of endorsements from FL-Dems and posted impressive Fundraising.

Gelber's opponent, Dave Aronberg has been bogged down. Starting with vastly less experience, Aronberg annouced his intentions to run at a luncheon in the longtime Republican stronghold of Cape Coral, in SW Florida - a somewhat odd choice for a Democrat from West Palm Beach.

But looking at the issues, a pattern emerges. Gary Fineout posted an outstanding examination of the two candidates' voting record.

Aronberg supported HB 1171 - an insurance deregulation bill. Rather GOPesque, I would say. Anyone who has Googled "CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP" lately can tell you why more deregulation of industries like insurance is probably a really bad idea. But Aronberg voted for deregulation. Gelber opposed it.

Aronberg supported HB 1495 - allowing Citizens Insurance to raise rates, even though we haven't been hit with a storm in a few years (just a major recession). Floridians already hit by the one worst real estate downturns will soon see a 10% spike in their Citizens Property Insurance. This is extra painful because most folks on CPI CAN'T get anyone else to cover them. So they're stuck.

Gelber opposed this one too.

How is Aronberg on The Environment? I quote Mr. Fineout:

SB 360, the controversial growth management bill that was roundly criticized by environmental groups but still signed into law by Crist.

Aronberg: Yes - Gelber: No

SB 1696 raised college tuition rates. Quoth Mr. Fineout:

Aronberg: Yes - Gelber: No

The problem here is that College Tuition and the Economy run on opposite cycles. When the economy is strong and working class people have more money, state school tuition tends to remain affordable. However, as we have seen in the past year, when the bottom drops out and people lose their jobs and their houses, state tuition goes up. Some kids who have the grades and the acceptance letters in their hands can't afford to go. SB 1696 may very well make this bad situation even worse.

The one that real kills me is HB 453 - THE VOUCHER BILL.

HB 453 gives tax credits to companies who paid for private school vouchers. In Bush v. Holmes the SCOFLA ruled that vouchers were unconstitutional.

In short, FL schools get money from three basic sources 1) Property Tax, 2) The Federal Government, and 3) Corporate Tax. Florida does an excellent job constructing formulas to offset disparity, but the problem is that there just isn't enough cash to go around. The tax break HB 453 awarded corporations for private school vouchers results in fewer dollars available to FEFP. The real kicker is that this Voucher Bill came on the heels of steep declines in property tax revenue due to an imploding Real Estate market. We can play a shell game, or the name game, but school funding is a zero sum game.

On VOUCHERS:

Aronberg: Yes - Gelber: No

Last quarter, more than 62% of Gibbons contributions came from outside St. Pete

According to the latest campaign treasurer's reports, more than 62% of Deveron Gibbons cash contributions last quarter came from donors outside of St. Petersburg. Gibbons raised $41,030 in cash contributions with $25,504 coming from donors who don't even live in St. Petersburg. Overall, Gibbons has raised $156,655 with more than $100,504 of that coming from donors outside of St. Petersburg.

Are Scott Wagman' ads on Google a violation of Florida's election laws?

I've been wrong before about Scott Wagman violating Florida's election laws, so I was much more thorough this time around concerning a possible violation by Mr. Houghton-Wagman.

And while the case has yet to be investigated and ruled on, it appears as if Wagman could be in a heap of trouble with the Florida Elections Commission. The alleged violation:

Upon conducting a search for the term "Jamie Bennett" on Google's search engine, I was returned to a screen with an advertisement for the Scott Wagman Campaign for St. Petersburg Mayor.

This ad "expressly advocates the election of a candidate" by including the language "Scott Wagman for Mayor", thereby qualifying the ad as a political advertisement as defined by Section 106.143, F.S.

Accordingly, there should be a candidate disclaimer, but there is not. This ad appears on Google searches from St. Petersburg, Florida, for the terms "Kathleen Ford", "Bill Foster" and "Deveron Gibbons" -- all of whom are Wagman's competition.

There are other ads similar, BUT NOT EXACTLY THE SAME, as this banner ad. Example 2:

Example 3:

Example 4:

My contention is that each separate ad should be construed as a separate violation, especially since there is no remedy for correcting the omission of a disclaimer. What's worse is that Wagman's campaign obviously left off the disclaimer because of spacial concerns, thereby making this a "willful" violation.

So I have filed several complaints with the Florida Elections Commission. So far this election season, I have been right three times and wrong once regarding complaints. I could be wrong here, perhaps there is an opinion I haven't read. But if I am right about Wagman's egregious violations, it could end up costing his campaign several thousand dollars. Even to a millionaire, that has to count for something.

Update: So I asked for an unofficial opinion from Gary Holland, Assistant General Counsel for the Florida Department of State. He replied: "I agree the one that says "Elect Scott" is a paid ad that should have a disclaimer."

In H-45, Kathryn Starkey's $till ahead of Richard Corcoran, but not by much

In the ultra-competitive race to replace Tom Anderson in House District 45, Kathryn Starkey is still ahead of Richard Corcoran in the fundraising department, although Starkey raised about half of her money in the 1st quarter. The figures to date:

Starkey : $51,750 raised with $47,934 left on hand.
Corcoran: $49,105 raised with $43,077 left on hand.

527 airs first attack ad against Alex Sink

Jax Online: One of the hottest issues emerging in the statewide races coming up in 2010 appears to be travel on state aircraft. Florida Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp was the first to come under fire for what some deemed as “excessive” travel on state aircraft on the taxpayers dime. Kottkamp, a rumored candidate for Attorney General, has moved to put the accusations to rest by reimbursing the state and hiring a well-respected legal team to assist in fighting ethics complaints.

The issue has not stopped with Kottkamp; however. Attorney General Bill McCollum and CFO Alex Sink are now both facing ethics complaints over their own use of state aircraft. Today, the first attack ad of the political cycle emerged with a YouTube video targeted at Sink. The ad was produced by the 527 group “Don’t Bank on Sink”, which is headed up by Gainesville businessman Jay Navarrete. The ad appears below:

Donkeys out-raise Elephants

From the Buzz: Here's a switch: The Florida Democratic party outraised the state GOP in the three months that ended June 30, $1.19-million to $1.16. That's the first time that's happened in a second quarter since 1996, when the Division of Elections started putting the records online.

Both parties still spent more than they took in (including $250,000 in American Express charges the RPOF), though the GOP's numbers included $400,000 transferred to its federal account.

Democrats counted 1,740 donations and Republicans 224. The Democrats' biggest single donor was Charles Brink of Tampa, co-founder of the Mona Vie drink company who gave $100,000, and the DNC gave the state party $76,000. The Republicans' biggest single donor was TECO, which gave $70,000.

On3PR has again put together a handy spread sheet of all the state candidates' campaign finance numbers.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Pinellas GOP outraises local Dems, yet both have same amount of cash on hand. In other words, where's the money JJ?

For the first time since 1996, the Florida Democratic Party outraised the Republican Party of Florida. Unfortunately for Pinellas Democrats, that trend did not extend to the local level, as the Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee still crushes the Pinellas Democratic Party.

For the last quarter:

Pinellas GOP $29,891
Pinellas Democrats $22,700

Through June 30, the parties have raised:

Pinellas GOP $96,598
Pinellas Democrats $33,882

But, the Pinellas Republican Executive Committee is blowing through money like I do at Derby Lane.

Expenditures through June 30:

Pinellas GOP $86,677
Pinellas Democrats $24,223

Contributions minus expenditures:

Pinellas GOP $9,911
Pinellas Democrats $9,669

The drain on party resources has to be a point of embarrassment for PCREC Chair JJ Beyrouti, not that he's been pinching pennies. He's still taking his monthly $800 "allowance" despite the fact that the party would be broke if it weren't for a handful of well-heeled donors...donors who are reported to be concerned about Beyrouti's spending patterns.

Beyrouti authorized spending $7,690 on audio-visuals for the Lincoln Day Dinner. At 300 guests, the PCREC could make each person a $19.99 DVD filled with pictures of Sarah Palin and still have money left over.

What's particularly troubling to Beyrouti's detractors is his authorizing $4,000 in payments to consultant Jim Dobyns, the former campaign manager of left-winger Ed Helm. Dobyns, who oversaw the Dick Morris event fiasco, is also the Pinellas Coordinator for Marco Rubio.

Several local Republicans who support Charlie Crist, including one of JJ's biggest donors, were very disappointed to learn that Beyrouti was essentially underwriting one of Rubio's operatives.

Many of these same detractors also wondered why the party was so far off its previous fundraising efforts. Comparing the party's current balance sheet with where it stood at this point in the last election cycle clearly shows that the party is worse off:

Contributions through June 30, 2007: $132,342
Contributions through June 30, 2009: $96,598

Contributions minus expenditures as of July 1, 2007: $58,217
Contributions minus expenditures as of July 1, 2009: $9,911

And don't blame the poor fundraising on a post-Obama drop-off. Florida is still a Republican state, Pinellas is still a Republican county. The GOP controls the constitutional offices, the legislative delegation and most of the municipal governments. If the economy is to blame, then the PCREC should be cutting its expenses.

What the PCREC is suffering from is poor leadership. But for a Democrat like me, that's fine by me.

Sunday's editorial pages

St. Petersburg Times - Poor Stewards Of Our Money: “As St. Petersburg Times staff writer Bill Varian details in today’s Perspective, many local governments went on a binge when times were good, expanding their budgets, giving generous raises, building new facilities and hiring to staff them. And now that times are bad, the choices and the cutbacks are far worse than they would have been had governments been more fiscally circumspect. In the boom times, government failed to plan for a future that wasn’t as bright as the present. Even when governments are flush with cash, elected officials need to remember how to say no. It may be easy to say yes to outsized raises in good times. That doesn’t make it right. The same is true of new services, buildings and staff. There is nothing inherently wrong with enhancing reasonable government services, so long as decisionmakers look ahead and figure out how they will pay the salaries of the staff in that new facility — whether it’s a fire station, library or park — when times turn sour. But to spend money just because it’s coming in is folly, pure and simple. That’s especially true given the state’s history of boom and bust cycles, which should make preparing for a bust second nature.”

Daytona Beach News-Journal - Hometown Democracy: “We will not support Amendment 4, though our sympathies lie with its authors’ intention to restore sanity to Florida’s comprehensive planning and loosen developers’ steely grip on this state. Amendment 4 is unlikely to achieve those goals. It instead could make a bigger mess of community planning. It would reduce what has at least been a negotiated permitting process between developers and professional public planners to an up-or-down gamble between developers and their opponents, with too many of Florida’s natural assets and the livability of Florida communities at stake…There are lots of laws on the books that could protect our beautiful state — if the power brokers wanted it that way.” Power brokers or not, those laws are there to be enforced and expanded, too, if the voters want it that way. They have but to elect local officials with the guts to say no to bad development plans and legislators willing to have that honest conversation about growth. Fat chance? If voters can’t accomplish that, there’s little hope they would be any more successful at managing growth wisely through the ballot.”

Lakeland Ledger - Prescription Drug Abuse: Polk’s No. 1 Killer: “Pharmaceuticals are killing people hand over fist in this county,” Sheriff Grady Judd told The Ledger on Tuesday. “There’s not a week that goes by that we don’t work two, three, four, five deaths - and pharmaceuticals are killing them.” A 2008 report from the Florida Medical Examiners Commission says the top-three drugs that caused deaths last year were: - Oxycodone, a powerful narcotic painkiller (941 deaths). - Benzodiazepines, sedative-hypnotic drugs that include Xanax and Valium (929 deaths). - Methadone, a narcotic painkiller known for its role in heroin detoxification, now often prescribed as a replacement for oxycodone (693 deaths). Not until No. 4 on the list does an illegal drug appear: cocaine (648 deaths). Judd says a law is needed to allow pharmacies to cross-check with one another via a database that flags customers with repetitive prescriptions.”

Orlando Sentinel - Absence Of Leadership: “Merging government departments of Orlando and Orange County could save taxpayers millions, actually improve services and even work to generate more revenue by spurring economic development. But there was Mr. [Orange County Mayor Rich] Crotty, saying the other day that he’s all for looking at ways to consolidate the two governments, except that, because he only has a year and a half remaining in office, the issue’s best left to others. Mr. [Orlando Mayor Buddy] Dyer took the opportunity to reiterate his opposition to joining government operations. He said it’s not his highest priority, not on par with getting commuter rail and improving the city’s budget. Who’s the greater letdown? Mr. Crotty for his disingenuous cheer for consolidating services, or Mr. Dyer, for his unambiguous rejection of the concept? It’s close, each showing no interest in taking a leadership role on the issue. But we find the residents of Metro Orlando the certain losers.”

Tallahassee Democrat - Try Again: "While it may seem a long way off until another legislative session enlivens the capital city, for champions of serious prison reform as it relates to mental illness and substance abuse, the education of lawmakers and support of the public cannot resume too soon."

Tampa Tribune - Reducing Abuse Of State Pensions: “Few lawmakers have the stomach for it, but additional reforms do need to be made. Some workers have gamed the system by working huge amounts of overtime in their final few years to qualify for a much larger lifetime pension. That abuse should stop. Lawmakers should look into how the state can afford to pay 6.5 percent guaranteed interest on money employees invest in the deferred retirement program at a time the federal funds rate is near zero. Now that financial conditions have changed, the Legislature should put the brakes on the benefits train.”

Why isn't the Times writing about Tom Coehlo's connection to Deveron Gibbons?

How is it that the Palm Beach Post can write a story about a politician's prominent supporter and fundraiser getting into trouble...

...yet the St. Petersburg Times has not written about the connection between Deveron Gibbons and Tom Coehlo, a prominent supporter and fundraiser of Gibbons arrested for, well, being a con man.

Instead of researching the Coehlo-Gibbons connection, Times editor Heather Uriquedes greenlights this story: The Suncoast Police Benevolent Association held a Fourth of July barbecue on Saturday for the men and women of the St. Petersburg Police Department stuck working the holiday. Mayoral candidate Bill Foster stopped by to flip burgers -- while wearing a campaign shirt.

"While Rome burned, Nero fiddled."

Latvala's raisin' money like its 1999

Damn, Jack's back. Not so former Senator Jack Latvala raised $229,750 in his first quarter back on the campaign trail. $229,750! He's on pace to outraise Marco Rubio, maybe even some of the other major statewide candidates. Not that it much matters, but he's got $223K still left on hand, meaning Jack's running a tight ship.

Memo to Nina Hayden: please, please reconsider your bid for the state Senate. We love you on the Pinellas School Board. And if you run for the legislature, you are going to get outspent ten to one by the most moderate Republican state senator this side of Curt Kiser and Sandy Safley.

This isn't about the good fight, this is about taking away resources from other Democratic candidates who have a chance at winning. Please, Nina, reconsider

Crist's fundraising efforts in perspective

From the SP Times: We're not sure Floridians' hearts will necessarily swell with pride, but our governor is on his way to becoming one of the top campaign money raisers ever. In a lousy economy, Gov. Charlie Crist hauled in $4.3 million for his Republican Senate campaign.

For perspective, consider that the average amount raised by Senate candidates through the entire 2008 election cycle was $2.4 million. Or that the old record for a Senate fundraising quarter was $1.7 million by Mel Martinez in 2004. Or that the top fundraising quarter for Jeb Bush was $2.7 million, when he was a popular sitting governor with a brother in the White House.

Crist raised $86,000 a day on average, nearly enough to cover the average salaries of two Florida teachers. That's $3,583 every hour — six times the per-capita stimulus spending in Florida.

Just think what Crist could do for Florida's budget shortfall next year if he hit the fundraising circuit again for general revenue.

(Lucky bastard) Charlie Crist to get sneak peak of EA's NCAA 2010

Charlie Crist will get a sneak peek of NCAA Football 10 on the eve of its launch while visiting EA’s world renowned studio in Orlando. NCAA Football 10, set to launch Tuesday, July 14, delivers the excitement and pageantry of college football at its best and continues to push the bar with several new innovations this year including Season Showdown, TeamBuilder, Online Dynasty and Road to Glory. Not only will Gov. Crist meet the brains behind the football brawn, he’ll also get a first-hand look at what makes NCAA Football one of North America’s best-selling games and even see what he looks like in a college football uniform through the new TeamBuilder feature.

Crist will be greeted by an audience comprised of many of the world’s best video game developers, including the team responsible for developing NCAA Football 10. The Governor will give brief remarks, following an overview by Tiburon studio General Manager Philip Holt who will update Gov. Crist on EA Tiburon’s growth. NCAA Football 10 designers Jeff Luhr and Ben Haumiller will debut the new features of the game before the governor learns how to create his own team through the TeamBuilder feature.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Marco Rubio on GOP leadership's support of Charlie Crist: 'It sucks'

In addition to having very low name recognition against Charlie Crist – who has wide recognition and is popular to boot – and the fundraising disadvantage, Marco Rubio was reminded by a questioner at a forum at the Florida Society of News Editors that he also faces the opposition of his party leadership, which has backed Crist.

“Yeah. It sucks doesn’t it?” Rubio responded.

Crist says he won't Palin out of office

From the Sun-Sentinel: Looking thin, tanned and dapper in a navy suit with light blue pinstripes, Gov. Charlie Crist spoke at the Florida Society of News Editors awards luncheon Friday at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.

Crist was there to recognize his appointee, Pat Gleason, director of Cabinet Affairs and Special Counsel on Open Government for her efforts on behalf of access to law-making and press freedoms.

A Republican first-term governor and U.S. Senate candidate, Crist leads in fundraising among candidates seeking Sen. Mel Martinez’s office in the 2010 race.

Since he’s not seeking a second term, the state’s 44th governor is essentially a lame duck.

Asked if, like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, he will resign before his term ends in 2011 as he pursues national office, Crist said firmly, “No,” with a laugh and a smile as he worked the room, greeting top news executives from around the state.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Steve Kornell's in your mailbox

Why is it that we have three good candidates for City Council from one district and yet we are stuck with Leslie Curran and Wengay Newton from other districts? Anyway, Steve Kornell's mail-piece to absentee ballot requesters arrived yesterday. Standard fare, but sharp enough. Considering his budget, I award it a solid 'B' grade.

Prominent supporter of Deveron Gibbons arrested on fraud charges

Authorities say Thomas Coelho, a 40-year-old St. Petersburg ticket broker, has left behind a trail of legal and financial carnage in five states.

His latest mess, police say, is right here in Tampa Bay.

Coelho was arrested Thursday on a charge of scheming to defraud, accused of agreeing to sell $115,000 worth of Super Bowl XLIII tickets for a Tampa woman.

Coelho is a prominent supporter of mayoral candidate Deveron Gibbons. Just two months ago, Gibbons released a media advisory touting Coehlo's support.

In fact, Coehlo was such a close supporter of Gibbons, the con man hosted an event for Gibbons campaign on March 31st at his restaurant.

What else is there to say other than Gibbons' campaign manager Nick Hansen sure is a good judge of character.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

SP Preservation's Summer walking tour

Come join St. Petersburg Preservation for its next summer evening historic walking tour on Tuesday, July 14, leaving from the historic Detroit Hotel at the NW corner of Central Avenue and 2nd Street at 6:00 P.M. The tour should end at approximately 8:15 P.M., leaving time to enjoy sunset with a cool drink or perhaps a gelato at a downtown business. The tour will include sections from both our popular "Original" Downtown Historic Tour as well as our newest tour, "North by Old Northeast."

This summer evening tour will be conducted at a leisurely pace, taking in a portion of downtown, the waterfront and the Historic Old Northeast neighborhood.

Tour participants will get to see some of the jewels of St. Pete's past while learning about the City's history and architecture. We expect to have a special guest and tour guide for a portion of this tour, Mayor Rick Baker. Mayor Baker is the author of Mangroves to Major League, a book published in 2000 about the history of St. Petersburg.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Clean Up Crislip Arcade

Saint Petersburg Preservation is excited to tell you that we're making progress with the Crislip Arcade in downtown St. Petersburg!

We've worked with the owner and with the City of St. Petersburg, J Allan Studios, and Pinstripe Marketing to find a way to clean up and revitalize this prominent stretch of Central Avenue, between 6th and 7tth Streets.

The owner has agreed to let us clean up the arcade and storefronts - sweep, paint, and generally make the place look a lot better. In exchange he will be offering five-year leases at low rates. There are already about 11 organizations on the lease waiting list, including Studio@620.

This is a big step in having the Crislip recognized as an important structure, and hopefully everyone will soon see it as a contributing structure from St. Pete's history that's worth saving.

Cleanup day is Saturday, July 11th from 8a on. We need painters, sweepers, cleaners, movers, and shakers to help us revitalize the Crislip Arcade area.

Please check out http://www.cleanupcrislip.com where you can register to volunteer and give a donation for water and supplies.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Maddox will run for Ag Commish

Former Florida Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox will file paperwork to enter the agriculture commissioner race next week, ending a four-year break from politics.

Maddox, who said he lived on a small farm when growing up south of Miami and whose wife comes from a family that's farmed for generations, said he will emphasize the consumer services aspect of the job.

"That's a very important position for Floridians. That job basically regulates most all the things that affects the consumer and I think that's where that race out to be," Maddox said. "Of course, you're there to promote agriculture but consumer services is a huge part of this job." Read the rest of this AP story here.

Wags' first mail-piece...and it's atrocious!

I don't know which cookie-cutter design firm baked this lump of crap up, but Scott Wagman's first direct mail-piece arrived today. His campaign just thinks its so cute, that voters actually recognize that blue-green spectrum logo, but they don't. This piece is just atrocious.

If a voter looks at this cover, especially an older, undecided voter, they will have absolutely no clue what this mail-piece is about. Silhouette? Why is this person hiding?

As for the blue-green spectrum, NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THAT REPRESENTS! Mitch and Co., think they have been everywhere and EVERYONE has seen Scott's logo. Well, they haven't. It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to ingrain a logo into a political media market the size of St. Petersburg.

Scott is entirely unknown, according to at least two different polls. So if voters don't recognize his name, why would they recognize his logo? Wagman's campaign has no sign presence to speak of, no ads on television, so no undecided voter is going to have any clue what this logo is about.

As for the text, the use of an ellipse instead of question mark only works if there is a pay-off in the inside...which there isn't. Wagman would have been better served with a more straightforward approach.

My problems with the meat-and-potatoes portion of this mail-piece are numerous. First of all, there is no tie-in with the cover. The cover is about smart ideas, while the inside is about Scott's biography. This mail-piece doesn't make sense.

Visually, this mail-piece is entirely unappealing. I see what the designer was trying to do, but there is no continuity to the design. Look at it as entire piece, and you'll see that it really is four separate portions. There is no flow.

As for the text, there should be a pay-off from the cover and if not, there should be, perhaps, a reversed out headline along the bottom or the top. What's weird is the sub-headline: Vote By Mail or September 1st. First of all, there is no need for a GOTV message here, secondly, the GOTV message is confusing, and, most importantly, the GOTV message should not be the dominant aspect of this piece.

Don't get me started on the back of this mail-piece. Saying that it was designed by committee is an understatement. This is "kitchen-sink" design, because everything is put into this section. I can just hear the consultants or the creative director cajoling the poor designer to make "a little bit more room" so they could get this sentence in or that picture.

Like I said, atrocious. If this was a nickel-and-dime campaign, I would grade it a C- but since Mitch Kates will probably make 2K of this roogoodoo, I give it a D-. Barely passing.

Diaz-Balart brothers endorse Crist

As if polling and fundraising weren’t already an uphill battle for Marco Rubio, now Cuban-American Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart have both endorsed Charlie Crist.

Rubio is counting on strong support from Cuban-Americans in his Senate campaign. He was Florida’s first Cuban-American House Speaker, but his base is being pulled out from under him with this endorsement.

Monday, July 06, 2009

This post brought to you by poker

I had to sell off my seat to the World Series of Poker, but if I hadn't I would have written something like this...good luck Nate!

I'll be boarding a plane in the next few minutes headed to Las Vegas, where I'll be for the next several days to conduct some research (yes, really!) for my book and to play in the World Series of Poker.

I haven't played cards for 18 months or so, should you probably be happy if I happen to appear at your table. Nevertheless, for a period of about two and a half years starting in 2004, when the poker craze was at its peak and it was easy to find poor opponents, I was playing quite a bit and relied on poker as a secondary source of income, without which I probably would not have been able to quit my consulting job

Most of my play was online, which is certainly much duller than playing in person, but has the advantage of allowing you to play many more hands per hour: you don't have to wait for the dealer to physically shuffle the cards, or the players to handle their chips. And if you like, you can play on multiple tables at once -- this is not as impossible as it sounds since you should be folding most of your hands anyway, although there were days when I felt like a meth-addled air traffic controller. Since poker is a volume business -- even winning players earn a very small amount of money on a per-hand basis -- this was essential to many player's ability to earn a living from the game.

In the long run, this turned out to be a good thing: poker, as they say, is a hard way to make an easy living, and trying to moonlight as a poker player while running a sports business was physically and mentally exhausting. I'm having much more fun now than I was back then, and get go to bed feeling like maybe, just maybe, I've contributed something insightful to the world that will make people's lives better.

But following the debate over the UIGEA was one of the primary motivators that got me into politics. It took a "dirty trick" -- attaching it to an unrelated conference report that couldn't possibly be voted down -- to get the UIGEA to become law, although then again, this was undertaken partly in response to another "dirty trick", which was the process of anonymous holds that was preventing the bill from coming to a floor vote in the Senate (where it would probably have passed on its own merits). I found the whole process of watching the sausage getting made alarming -- but also utterly fascinating. Without poker -- and without that bill -- there probably wouldn't have been any FiveThirtyEight.

The UIGEA, intended as a way to bolster their family values credentials, didn't turn out so well for the Republicans. The bill's principal sponsor in the House, a very moderate Iowa Republican named Jim Leach, lost his seat after 30 years to an unknown political science professor, a Democrat named Dave Loebsack. I was one of thousands of poker players who gave money to Loebsack -- he was the first political candidate I'd ever donated to -- and considering that he won by only 6,000 votes in a race that wasn't even on many observer's radar screens, it may have been those extra funds that put him into the Congress. Meanwhile, the primary driver of the bill in the Senate, the then-majority leader Bill Frist, retired and has barely been heard from since, his Presidential aspirations dashed by the landslide losses that Republicans took all over the country that year.

There are now efforts being led mostly by Barney Frank and Ron Paul -- politics makes for strange bedfellows -- to either overturn the UIGEA or to explicitly legalize online poker, which would allow American casinos to take money from American taxpayers, with Uncle Sam getting a share of their earnings. I am not terribly optimistic about the prospects for passage of any of these bills -- gambling is opposed by many paternalist Democrats as well as most Republicans -- but as the government is forced to rely on increasingly "creative" mechanisms to collect revenues and pay down the debt, they may gain some traction.

In the meantime, you'll have to wish me luck, and I'll try to spare you guys the bad beat stories.

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