More than 2.5 million of Florida’s 11.1 million registered voters claim no party affiliation or belong to an assortment of parties other than Republican or Democrat. That minority likely holds the key to the Governor’s Mansion and who will live there for the next four years.

So, the battle is under way between Alex Sink and Rick Scott to corral that significant bloc of voters — always fickle, rarely predictable, highly skeptical of all candidates and immensely diverse.

“Independents can have a major impact, particularly in Florida,” said Peter Bergerson, political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and an avid election watcher for more than four decades. “Where that impact is greatest is in competitive races, and in Florida, there are two very close … Senate and governorship.” Getting these folks to the polls can be a challenge, Bergerson said.

“Their turnout is very hard to predict. . . . The independent turnout will be considerably lower than two years ago.”

In the 2008 general election, the presence of Barack Obama on the ballot sparked a huge response of voter turnout 75 percent statewide.

Brad Coker, who manages the Mason-Dixon poll in Florida, echoes Bergerson.

“While NPAs (no-party affiliates) make up something like 22 percent of the state’s registered voters, they only cast about 17 percent of the statewide vote,” Coker said. “NPA ranks are filled with less-engaged voters. . . . They sign up with no strong political leanings and they are the more likely to just not show up than those who register with a party.”

Coker said independents have a record of leaning Republican.

In a Mason-Dixon poll conducted and released last week, Sink leads Scott among independent voters, 44 to 37 percent. Among independent voters, 16 percent remained undecided in the poll.

FloridaCapitalNews/ Rathgeber/ Excerpt/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has setup a web site to let disgruntled Floridians vent about their problems getting paid by BP claims czar Ken Feinberg.

Her new website - www.myfloridacfo.com/FloridaClaimsHelp/- invites visitors to share their stories “if you’ve filed your claim and provided the documentation requested to the best of your ability but have not received a response or are getting the runaround.”

Feinberg, who took over the Gulf Coast Claims Facility on Aug. 23, this week promised larger, faster claims even as he tries to manage a backlog of more than 10,000 claims, many of them in Florida.

Sink and the Florida Cabinet are demanding that Feinberg speed up the payments and want them to show up at their next Cabinet meeting next month.

PostPolitics/ Kam/ 09/30/31

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

BigHollywood/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

From: www.politicsofhollywood.com

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

Tea party activists say they’ll try to serve subpoenas today on Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson and Orlando political consultant Doug Guetzloe in an attempt to prove they conspired to create the Florida Tea Party and field a spoiler candidate in Grayson’s race.

Tea party activists began serving subpoenas Wednesday on Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, Orlando political consultant Doug Guetzloe and seven Florida Tea Party candidates in an attempt to prove Grayson conspired to create the political party to field a spoiler candidate in his own race.

If the legal move is successful, it could provide ammunition against Grayson in the weeks leading up to his Election Day showdown with Republican challenger Dan Webster. Grayson is in Washington, D.C., but a subpoena was served on his wife at their Orlando home in his absence this morning.

Members of the tea party movement accuse Grayson, a liberal Democrat, of colluding with Guetzloe, a Republican consultant and one of the founders of the Florida Tea Party political party. The party’s first candidate was Peg Dunmire, a business consultant running in Grayson’s 8th District.

Florida Republican Party officials contend that Dunmire is a spoiler meant to pull conservative votes away from Webster, easing the way for Grayson’s re-election.

Guetzloe has filed a defamation lawsuit against tea party activists Tim McClellan and Everett Wilkinson of South Florida, and Cheryl Matchett of Maitland, claiming the accusations they’ve made against him have hurt his reputation.

Wade Vose, a Winter Park attorney who represents the three activists, began serving subpoenas on Grayson, Guetzloe, Dunmire and other Florida Tea Party candidates this morning.

“It’s obviously a publicity stunt,” Grayson said. “The timing is no coincidence. This lawsuit has been going on for months. Why would they suddenly need my testimony two weeks before the election?”

It’s the latest twist in a months-long battle over the tea party identity — a battle that’s grown statewide but is centered in Grayson’s Central Florida district.

OrlandoSentinel/Schlueb / Excerpts/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

Who is the real Charlie Crist?      

The Palm Beach Post editorial board will be grilling Gov. Crist in our newsroom starting at 10 a.m. Friday, and you can see the live streaming video right here on PostonPolitics.com.

The editorial board will ask questions such as:

• Where do you really stand on the health care law?

• Where do stand on the stimulus?

• Which party would you caucus with?

With election day a month away, Crist comes for his candidate interview with The Post’s editorial board at a critical time for his campaign.

New polls show he is losing support to Democrat Kendrick Meek and that Republican candidate Marco Rubio’s lead is increasing. But the governor just got the support of former Democratic congressman Robert Wexler of Palm Beach County.

PostPolitics/ PalmBeachPost/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

Meg Whitman‘s rival Gov. Jerry Brown is wasting no time making hay off her undocumented worker scandal — saying the former maid has a “compelling story.”

In a news release, the Democratic candidate for governor of California said he wants Nicky Diaz Santillan to be “treated with respect and dignity as this story unfolds.”

Brown added, “After more than a year of Whitman demanding immigration policy that ‘holds employers accountable,’ we learn that accountability doesn’t extend to her own actions.”

Whitman’s camp claims Santillan lied about her immigration status … and they believe they have the documents to prove it.

TMZ/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

From:  www.politicsofhollywood.com

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

A “super PAC” backed by Republican strategist Karl Rove, and largely financed by a few wealthy out-of-state businessmen, has reported spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars to support Florida Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio.

Federal records filed Tuesday night show the money, $246,000, was paid to an Austin-based direct marketing firm, Olsen & Shuvalov, whose website says that it specializes in helping Republican political campaigns and conservative causes.  

So-called super PACs, legally known as “independent expenditure-only committees,” are a new breed of a 527 political organization that can raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations and individuals to support or oppose candidates.

Rubio is locked in a heated three-way race with Democrat Kendrick Meek and no party candidate Gov. Charlie Crist. Election Day is Nov. 2.

The nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics reported earlier this month that American Crossroads raised more than $9.3 million between January and August. Among its other expenditures was $678,000 to oppose Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Four billionaires, all on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, account for much of that money:

• Trevor Rees-Jones, president and chief executive of Dallas-based Chief Oil and Gas, $2 million.

• Robert Rowling, CEO of TRT Holdings in Irving, Texas, $2 million.

• Jerry Perenchio, Los Angeles-based former owner of Univisionbroadcasting, $1 million.

• Cincinnati-based American Financial Group, owned by 90-year-old Carl Linder, $400,000.

Another major contributor to American Crossroads — Orlando-based defense contractor Daniels Manufacturing — is also a direct supporter of Rubio. The company received nearly $34 million in federal contracts in the past decade, according to data compiled by GovernmentContractsWon.com.

SunSentinel/ Christensen/ Excerpts/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor.

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

Quinnipiac University poll of likely voters (MoE +/- .29) : It is no coincidence that Rubio is getting 46 percent of the vote and 48 percent of the electorate is angry at Washington,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Rubio’s double-digit lead in the horse race is confirmed by a 53 – 41 percent margin for a senator who will oppose President Barack Obama’s policies and a 47 – 38 percent preference that the Republicans rather than the Democrats control the U.S. Senate.

“Not only does Marco Rubio have a double-digit lead in the U.S. Senate race, but more of his supporters say their mind is made up than those backing Gov. Charlie Crist and Congressman Kendrick Meek,” said Brown.

“Almost half of Florida’s likely voters are angry at the federal government, and Rubio gets 68 percent of these angry voters. Moreover, with only 3 percent of voters undecided, Rubio just needs to hold onto what he’s got, while Crist and Meek, especially, have their work cut out for them if they want to pass the leader,” Brown added.

“If Gov. Crist winds up losing the race, he may kick himself for giving up his day job in Tallahassee. Even though he gets only 33 percent of the vote in the three-way race for senator, voters still give him a healthy 51 – 43 percent approval rating for his job as governor.

PostPolitics/ Smith/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010

All but a baker’s dozen of GOP state House and Senate members are backing Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Scott, who ran as an “outsider” in a brutal GOP primary against Attorney General Bill McCollum.

Scott released a list of campaign co-chairmen that included nearly all of the state legislature’s Republicans, some of whom backed McCollum in the primary and objected at the time that Scott, who spent $50 million of his own money in the primary, couldn’t be trusted.      

McCollum has refused to endorse Scott in the general election against Democrat Alex Sink.

The list of GOP legislators who haven’t signed on either, according to the campaign document, include:

Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Sens. Victor Crist, Nancy Detert, Rudy Garcia, Steve Oelrich, and Alex Villalobos, who publicly endorsed Sink this week.

Also missing was Ft. Lauderdale Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, who’s running against Democrat Rep. Kelly Skidmore in the race to replace Senate President Jeff Atwater. Atwater’s stepping down to run for chief financial office.

PostPolitics/ Kam/ 09/30/2010

FL Connection/ Arnoldo Varona, Editor

Comments (0) Sep 30 2010