Anyone else think this?
* How unsettling–no, disgusting–that at the GOP presidential debate in California loud applause broke out when it was noted that more than 200 inmates have been executed on the watch of Texas Gov. Rick Perry
* The economy remains fair–as well as unfair–game when it comes to the juxtapositioning of Republican presidential candidates and what’s being proposed by the White House. But isn’t it ironic, if not obscenely presumptuous, for Republican presidential candidates to take on the president, a former professor of constitutional law, over “constitutional issues” and related founding-fodder matters?
* Isn’t it time we re-arranged the furniture for presidential addresses to joint sessions of Congress? It’s not fair to the president, nor to the presidential message, that viewers’ attention is not solely focused on the president. Not when Joe Biden and John Boehner–and accompanying body language–share the
frame. It’s like periodically yielding to the temptation to check out a game score on your favorite fine-dining restaurant’s bar-side flat screen.
Do we really need to have the vice president and the speaker of the house–especially when they’re from different parties–as part of the presidential backdrop? Whether it’s Dick Cheney or Joe Biden; Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner. Let alone in an era when bitter partisanship and unseemly histrionics now define our politics. De facto props behind the president, whether it’s George W. Bush or Barack H. Obama, are inevitably distracting and potentially disrespectful.
And we could probably do without those show-bizzy, network TV reaction shots of Congress. The ones that show politicians standing and applauding or sitting and smirking. The ones that highlight cheerleaders as well as churls.
* We hear so much about opaque PACs and cheap-shot attack ads, but we’re pretty much resigned to their skewing role in the political process. But couldn’t we just settle for eliminating the use of children in political ads? By definition, they pander and they exploit. And that includes the full-page, color ad currently running in both local dailies showing a sobbing little girl in pigtails wearing a “Trillions in Debt” T-shirt. It’s paid for by the Heritage Foundation.
OK, it’s not as viscerally disturbing as the “Daisy girl,” anti-Goldwater ad of 1964, but it’s shamelessly exploitative and doesn’t, of course, traffic in a nuanced American Dream that involves reasonable revenue raising. And as all political consultants know, that infamously controversial Lyndon B. Johnson campaign ad, although it was pulled after its first run, worked.
* “Responsible drilling” in the Everglades. Isn’t that about as oxymoronic as “President Bachmann”?
* When it comes to the Tampa Bay Rays and the inherent challenge that is this market, is this not the worst possible time for St. Petersburg to have a bush league mayor? Perhaps Bill Foster has a secret plan to keep the Rays–and convince the rest of us that he’s not a fool.
* When your police chief is featured in a lead story on the national network news–twice in a fortnight–it’s probably not good. That was certainly the case recently as Chief Jane Castor went national to explain a Columbine-like plot at Freedom High School. She was back again the following week detailing that notorious fraudulent tax-return and stolen-identities case.
* Maybe Gov. Rick Scott, who needs more than a donut shop “work day” and a kinder, gentler official photo to ingratiate himself around here, will see some
political opportunity in the higher ed soap opera now playing out over USF Polytechnic in Lakeland. Arguably, there couldn’t be a worse time for an independent “Florida Polytechnic.” That’s what the driving force behind the break-away bid, powerful Senate budget chairman J.D. Alexander of
Lake Wales, wants to call it. Perhaps “Porktechnic” would be more appropriate.
At any rate, the governor would be well served to apply his pro-thrift, anti-government growth mantra to thwart this ill-advised move. Sharing USF system resources is a major bottom-line consideration. As if Florida can afford adding a 12th state university right now.
There’s also concern over the loss of the ever-expanding USF brand name. Just ask students what they think of a de facto Alexander Tech diploma.
Ostensibly, Scott is no longer the parallel universe non-politician tethered to an ideology, a tea party, the Koch Brothers and libertarian think tanks. At least that’s the image he and Chief of Change Steve MacNamara want to convey. They’ve been in makeover mode since his approval ratings tanked to embarrassing depths, and the GOP establishment saw the implications for the 2012 election.
The epicenter of the critically-important I-4 corridor is Tampa. As the corridor goes, so goes Florida. As Florida goes, so goes the GOP presidential candidate’s chances. Having a vitriol magnet for governor, one who has already adversely impacted Tampa, cannot go unaddressed by the Republican Party.
Scott doesn’t get a mulligan for his arrogance and his ideological screw ups, including high speed rail, but this could at least mitigate matters around here. That may have pragmatic political appeal, let alone the allure of doing the right thing for USF, Poly students and the Florida budget.
Plus, Alexander will be term-limited out of the Florida Senate next year.
* The Tampa streetcar, for all of its financial issues–including extortionate CSX overhead and a rapidly eroding endowment–is at its core an economic development tool, not a commuter transit alternative. It has helped market Channelside, attract conventions and accommodate tourists heading to Ybor. And, yes, Tampa’s historic streetcar should also be a starter set for light rail, but that remains, as we well know, grist for a separate conversational mill.
* Sometimes City Council member Mary Mulhern sounds like she’s still addressing the Creative Loafing crowd. Her rationale for not supporting any kind of panhandling ban: “I cannot vote to make something illegal based on the image. I just can’t do it.” Noble but simplistic and disingenuous. By definition, panhandling, newspaper hawking and charity soliciting at high-traffic intersections is a public safety issue before it is anything else. I’ll take the word of TPD–and common sense–on this one.
* Former Mayor Pam Iorio’s book: “Straightforward, Ways To Live and Lead,” should be out in November. As a title, couldn’t “Straightforward” use some
tinkering? Wouldn’t, for example, “Straightforward, Ways To Live and Lead: Part I” be–hopefully–more accurate? Unless, of course, Iorio, 52, plans to stay with her incipient career as a motivational speaker.
* The mistrial in that machete-murder case, where two psychologists declared the “hearing voices in his head” defendant incompetent, seemed to beg a certain obvious–if unfair–question. Did one of those voices possibly say: “Stay with the ‘hearing voices’ strategy. It’s working”?
* A logical response to Monday’s Tampa Tribune front-page tease that heralded: “Janet Jackson to sing only chart toppers at Straz” would be: Name one.