Category: Media Watch

A staple of the Tampa Bay Times Sunday edition, part of its politics Buzz package, is its unveiling of the past week’s political “winner” and “loser.”

This Sunday’s “Winner of the week” was Marco Rubio. No, he wasn’t chosen Mitt Romney’s running mate, but, yes, he had “improved his image amid all the attention.” Etc.

“Loser of the week”? None other than Bob Buckhorn. A bit baffling in that it was noted that Tampa’s Democratic mayor was winning rave reviews from Republicans impressed with his “enthusiasm and help” leading up to the GOP convention. Say what?

Say “oops.” On Monday the Times published a correction. It seems that Mayor Bob actually had been chosen as one of the week’s political “winners.” Oh.

* “My children have watched their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, kowtow to a fundamentalist coalition in Israel. They are convinced that what ties Israel and America today is not a covenant of humanistic values but rather a new set of mutual interests: war, bombs, threats, fear and trauma.”–Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset.

* “If anybody has been harboring doubts about the status of U.S. leadership in space, well, there’s a one-ton, automobile-size piece of American ingenuity, and it’s sitting on the surface of Mars right now.”–John P. Holdren, President Barack Obama’s science advisor.

* “Romney’s pressing need to inject some authenticity–or at least some personality–into his campaign is the primary reason he should talk more about his faith. Take away Romney’s religion and you are left with Harvard, Bain and various corporate boardrooms. … Romney’s reticence on religion leaves a large personal and biographical gap.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.

* “In the end, the strongest case against Bain capitalism is a metaphor: Mitt Romney made a fortune swapping equity for debt. That’s what we’ve done for the past 30 years in this country, turning a great many of our assets into deficits for short-term gain. We need to do the opposite now.”–Joe Klein, Time magazine.

* “Governor Romney and Representative Ryan are the strongest team to return America to prosperity and to defend our interests abroad.”–U.S. Sen. John McCain.

* “If we focus on growth, then we get growth, and our deficit will go down. If we just focus on the deficit, we’re not going to get anywhere. This deficit fetishism is killing our economy.”–Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

* “This year shows the convergence of suburban-growth slowdown with city-growth gains. They’ve reached a kind of tipping point.”–Brookings Institution demographer William Frey in noting the culmination of a trend that started around 2007.

* “Incredibly, the show is a big hit in China. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t know they got HBO in China. … What they can’t get over, when they see the show, is a free press.”–Aaron Sorkin, creator of HBO’s The Newsroom.

* “Football is entertainment in which the audience is expected to delight in gladiatorial action that a growing portion of the audience knows may cause the players degenerative brain disease. Not even football fans, a tribe not known for savoring nuance, can forever block that fact from their excited brains.”–George Will, Washington Post.

* “Florida should hold off on its plan to remove noncitizens until the off-season. Purging the rolls now risks removing many more eligible citizens than noncitizens.”–Richard L. Hasen, University of California, Irvine, law professor and author of “The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown.”

* “Rick Scott is out there promoting Rick Scott. That not only is undercutting Mitt Romney, it may be hurting Connie Mack.”–Brad Coker, Mason-Dixon Research pollster.

* “Over the years, we’ve heard and read about many developers who would like to include a baseball stadium in their plans. Our position remains the same–we will consider any potential ballpark site in Tampa Bay, but only as part of a process that considers every ballpark site in Tampa Bay.”–Michael Kalt, Tampa Bay Rays senior vice president of development and business affairs.

* “I think there’s some come-early, stay-late traffic.”–Tampa Bay Host Committee president Ken Jones on the more than 90,000 hotel room nights that have been booked for the Republican Convention–more than the 75,000 that organizers originally projected.

* “It’s not a slight to him. He’s on a different career path. He wants to be governor of Florida.”–Retired USF political scientist Darryl Paulson on the absence of Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam from the list of GOP Convention speakers.

* “It’s an ounce of prevention to avoid a pound of repairs.”–TPD spokeswoman Laura McElroy on the 6-foot security fences that will be built around downtown government buildings during the Convention.

* “Not a second can be lost in forging new alliances and exploiting every conceivable tactical opportunity to make the life sciences the foundation of our region’s economic recovery.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe.

* “It’s not been easy, but I am ever the optimist. I think that we will come out of this (economic slump) poised to lead this state.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn in presenting the $804.4 million budget to City Council.

*A local story that was played prominently in both dailies over the weekend was the Hyatt Regency Tampa’s hosting of Fetish Con 2012, a gathering of those celebrating, well, all things kinky. In the context of polarizing politics, numbing GOP Convention prep and Tropical Storm Ernesto, it was obviously a welcome respite with tempting visuals.

Also in common: both pieces shared space with an obituary page. The Tampa Tribune version was far more blatant. The entire package, including photos of models and bondage enthusiasts, was juxtaposed next to photographs of the recently deceased. If I’m a family member, I’m outraged and wondering why I still subscribe.

*Another local story featured on the sports pages of both papers was the debut of the area’s newest sports radio station, 98.7-FM The Fan. Not exactly stop the presses stuff, but the treatment was decidedly different.

The Tampa Bay Times gave it page-one status with photos of the three major hosts: Former Lightning forward Chris Dingman, former Bucs tackle “Booger” McFarland and award-winning Times’ columnist Gary Shelton. They’re promoting one of their own. We get that.

The Tribune relegated it to a page-11 brief. We also get that. Not their gig in any way. But in mentioning the hosts, they left out Shelton, who’s one of the best and is still in London covering his 20th Olympic games. That’s just petty.

*But to the Trib’s credit, they prioritized a follow-up piece on Central Court Apartments. That’s where 16-year-old Javon Neal was killed in a confrontation with Tampa Police officers last month. They sent a photographer out with columnist Joe Henderson. Plaudits to the Trib for the approach, which might have been a bit too politically incorrect for the Times.

Henderson experienced Central Court, a neglected, African-American dominated, federally-subsidized, 68-unit complex with chronic crime issues and round-the-clock police calls, through the eyes–and ears–of black TPD Sgt. Kenny Norris.

Sgt. Norris’ job was more than that of emergency respondent or generic law enforcer. He was there to listen, to advise, to defuse mistrust of the police by the residents. He was probably there to counteract the New Black Panther Party too. He certainly wasn’t there to excuse monger. “You have to have a plan to get out of here,” he candidly told some single mothers with kids. “This should be a temporary stop in life.”

It cut to the core of too many Section 8 realities. It’s meant to be stop-gap housing–not a dead-end, generational lifestyle. Residents have a say in the direction of their lives–and an obligation to those they bring into this world as well as into that complex.

More to the point, Sgt. Norris wasn’t there because he was responding to one of the 818 police calls to the complex in the last three years. Or to one of the more than 220 so far this year. He was  there to prevent more such calls.

And somebody was there to record it. Well done.

* “We’re a super power, we don’t fight on our territory, but that means you are in somebody else’s stadium, playing by somebody else’s ground rules, and you have to understand the environment, the history, the politics of the country you wish to intervene in.”–Ryan C. Crocker, veteran government Arabist and departing ambassador to Afghanistan.

* “When it comes to foreign policy, what is said on the campaign trail sometimes bears only a faint resemblance to what happens in the Situation Room.”–Peter Baker, New York Times.

*Our baseline view is that after the November elections, policy makers will come to an agreement preventing the U.S. economy from falling off that (fiscal) cliff. We believe Republican and Democratic policy makers do agree on some key issues.”–Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management, on the January deadline for an accommodation on automatic spending cuts and expiring Bush tax cuts.

* “Technology is making campaigns dumber. BlackBerrys and iPhones mean that campaigns can respond to their opponents minute by minute and hour by hour. The campaigns get lost in tit-for-tat minutiae that nobody outside the bubble cares about. Meanwhile, use of the Internet means that Web videos overshadow candidate speeches and appearances. Video replaces verbal. Tactics eclipse vision.”–David Brooks, New York Times.

* “In the end, the strongest case against Bain capitalism is a metaphor: Mitt Romney made a fortune swapping equity for debt. That’s what we’ve done for the past 30 years in this country, turning a great many of our assets into deficits for short-term gain. We need to do the opposite now.”–Joe Klein, Time magazine.

* “This will get attention as perhaps the most interesting government contract written anywhere in the world this year.”–Jeffrey B. Liebman, professor of public policy at Harvard, after New York City agreed to let Goldman Sachs invest nearly $10 million in a jail program (“social impact bonds”), with GS profiting if the program significantly reduced recidivism rates.

* “There’s no evidence from anywhere on earth or any time in human history that shows that but for discrimination, there would be proportional representation and an absence of gross statistical disparities, by race, sex, height or any other human characteristic. Nonetheless, much of our thinking, legislation and public policy is based upon proportionality being the norm.”–Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University.

* “Football is entertainment in which the audience is expected to delight in gladiatorial action that a growing portion of the audience knows may cause the players degenerative brain disease. Not even football fans, a tribe not known for savoring nuance, can forever block that fact from their excited brains.”–George Will, Washington Post.

* “Incredibly, the show is a big hit in China. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t know they got HBO in China. … What they can’t get over, when they see the show, is a free press.”–Aaron Sorkin, creator of HBO’s The Newsroom.

* “I stayed up late one night last week worrying about how we’re going to get accredited, … thinking about the blank slate, thinking about how fast we’re going to have to find leadership. I’m excited.”–Sandra Featherman, Florida Poly Board of Trustees member.

* “It’s the RNC. It’s the biggest event ever. And there’s definitely bound to be some discomfort with that. But that’s the way it is.”–Sue Chrzan, Tampa Hillsborough County Expressway Authority spokeswoman.

* “Not a second can be lost in forging new alliances and exploiting every conceivable tactical opportunity to make the life sciences the foundation of our region’s economic recovery.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe.

Advance publicity for this month’s Republican Convention is now in full, ramp-up mode. USA Today has already been on site. So has the Travel Channel. This Sunday’s New York Times Travel section has a major feature focusing on what Charlotte and Tampa have to offer.

No, the Times didn’t check with Tampa Bay & Co., the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce or the Tampa Downtown Partnership. Sure, it would have risked blatantly self-promoting, establishment responses, but at least it wouldn’t have needed (seemingly unavailable) fact-checkers.

The Times featured a dozen “keynote addresses,” a variation on the “best places to…” format. Plus accompanying photographs–ranging from Inkwood Books to Ybor City. Alas, not all of  the photos came with correct identifications.  (The Tampa Bay Times Forum, for example, is not the “Convention Center” nor is Hillsborough Bay the same as “Tampa Bay.”) Its eclectic, hardly whimsy-challenged, insider sources: Gia Porras, a host of the “Two Big Mouths” podcast; Andre Jones, a bass player for Florida Night Heat; Janet Montano, a Keller Williams Realty agent; Andy Solomon, a professor of English and writing at the University of Tampa;  and Seble Gizaw, chef and owner of Queen of Sheba restaurant.

A sampling:

* Best Place to Pick Up Your Emergency Red Power Tie: “The clothes at Sunshine Thrift Store are stylish but have a certain inexpensiveness to them. There’s a fiscally responsible quality to a secondhand tie.”–Andre Jones.

* Hotel Most Likely to be Featured in the Background of a Shirtless, Self-Taken Photo: “Nebraska Avenue has a plethora of ‘hotels’ for the Republican of distinction.”–Jones.

* Best Place to Misuse PAC funds: “The world-famous Mons Venus, a strip club. We’re Florida; we do tourism right. We’re fully prepared to take away any disposable income or per diem in a way that’s the least traceable to you.”–Andy Solomon.

* “What interests Israel is Israel. Romney has a very pro-Israel stance. He is very suspicious of the Arab world. (Israelis) are very suspicious of Obama.”–Israeli political scientist Abraham Diskin.

* “The ECB (European Central Bank) is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro.”–ECB President Mario Draghi.

* “When you’re commander in chief, you owe the troops a plan. You owe the country a plan. That includes recognizing not just how to begin wars but how to end them.”–President Barack Obama.

* “It won’t help him win many votes this year, but it should be noted that Barack Obama has been a good foreign policy president. He, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the rest of his team have created a style of policymaking that is flexible, incremental and well adapted to specific circumstances. Following a foreign policy hedgehog, Obama’s been a pretty effective fox.”–David Brooks, New York Times.

* “I’m sure Obama’s attacks on Romney’s career at Bain Capital have hurt Romney, but they also seem to have hurt Obama–diverting him from offering a big optimistic message. … The president is punching so below his weight. It’s like watching Tiger Woods playing Putt-Putt or Babe Ruth bunting. Obama is better than this.”–Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times.

* “I wouldn’t accept the proposition that the Fed has no more ammunition. I do think that our tools, while they are nonstandard, still can create more accommodative financial conditions, can still provide support for the economy, can still help us return to a more normal economic situation.”–Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

* “There’s a semi-safe haven status for U.S. stocks. Investors aren’t going to buy emerging markets because those economies are slowing, they’re definitely not going to buy Europe, but the U.S. is most likely going to be OK.”–Robert Doll, senior advisor at money-management firm BlackRock.

* “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than You as to what constitutes a marriage.'”–Gay marriage opponent Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A.

* “We take this as an opportunity to create our own legacy. This program was not built by one man and it’s sure as hell not going to get torn down by one man. This program was built on every alumni, every single player that came before us, built on their backs.”–Penn State senior linebacker Michael Mauti.

* “Reasonable gun laws are not a panacea. But neither are they a threat to the Constitution. They merit a debate–not driven by ideology, but by prudential judgments on public safety.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.

* “And while it might be considered un-American to prevent an ordinary citizen from owning an assault rifle, would it be too much to ask why he needs to have a specially modified 100-round magazine?”–Michael A. Black, retired police officer and author of the upcoming “Sacrificial Offerings.”

* “Greg Schiano is the son I never had. I’m not surprised at all where he landed because he’s earned every opportunity along the way. He’s everything that’s right about football.”–Mike Miello, Schiano’s former coach at Ramapo (N.J.) High School.

* “We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues.”–Jeffrey P. Breeden, chief of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Europe, Asia and Africa section.

* “It’s going to take an international effort when Assad falls–and he will fall–in order to secure these (stockpiled chemical) weapons.”–Adm. William H. McRaven, head of the military’s Special Operations forces.

* “We will be truthful to sport.”–Bahram Afsharzadeh, secretary general of the Iranian Olympic committee, explaining that Iranian athletes will compete against Israelis at the London Olympics.

* “He (Mitt Romney) is going to have to define a vision of modern capitalism. He’s going to have to separate his vision from the scandals and excesses we’ve seen over the last few years. He needs to define the kind of capitalist he is and why the country needs his virtues. Let’s face it, he’s not a heroic entrepreneur. He’s an efficiency expert.”–David Brooks, New York Times.

* “America’s problems have rarely looked so large, and Congress has rarely looked so small.”–U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn.

* “I wish this president would learn how to be an American. … What I thought I said, but what I didn’t say, is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business.”–Romney surrogate and former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu.

* “When he (President Obama) shows up somewhere, he always leaves more popular than he was before he showed up. It really is the power of the incumbency.”–Democratic pollster David Beattie.

* “The Polish part is about the Catholic vote, and that vote is very important. Everyone that has won the majority of the Catholic vote has won the presidency.”–Veteran Republican campaign operative Ed Rollins explaining the inclusion of Poland on Mitt Romney overseas trip this week.

* “We’ve been hoping for this for a long time. Housing has been flat-lining at the bottom for two years. It looks like things are turning.”–Celia Chen, housing economist for Moody’s Analytics.

* “Incentives are baked into the system to take advantage of it for short-term profit. The incentives are to cheat, and cheating is profitable because there are no consequences.”–Neil Barofsky, ex-federal prosecutor, former special inspector general for TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and author of “Bailout.”

* “Why is NCLB (No Child Left Behind) so unpopular? Because it exposes the failure of adults in the lives of children. And the bipartisan response of many governors, educators and legislators–alarmingly, predictably–is to excuse the adults.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.

* “I feel like it was all God’s plans.”–George Zimmerman telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity about the night he fatally shot Trayvon Martin.

* “I’m not planning to get involved. Let the primaries work. I’ll be supportive of the Republican candidates after the primaries.”–Gov. Rick Scott.

* “They didn’t want the merger and they didn’t want me.”–Bill Johnson, former Progress Energy CEO, on how the merger with Duke Energy was viewed by Duke’s board of directors.

* “The fundamental issue is that you don’t yet have a city that’s particularly transit-supportive, because it’s just not dense enough.”–Pete Sechler, project manager for AECOM, the consulting firm hired to work on the city’s InVision Tampa project.

* “It will be a different environment, but we knew that when we asked for this.”–Christine Burdick, Tampa Downtown Partnership president, on the Secret Service security plan for the GOP Convention.

* “Things change (at) kind of warp speed.”–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her first meeting with Egypt’s new, Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi.

* “Iran is not seeking to have the atomic bomb, possession of which is pointless, dangerous and is a great sin from an intellectual and a religious point of view.”–Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

* “If we could sit down with Stalin and Mao, why are the Ayatollah or (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad so far beyond the pale?”–Patrick Buchanan, Creators Syndicate.

* “They are getting squeezed. It’s too much trouble to buy Iranian oil. Why alienate the United States and Europe? And the rest of OPEC is not very happy with Iran either.–Sadad Al Husseini, former executive vice president for exploration and development of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company.

* “If you want the American Dream–go to Finland.”–British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.

* “If we could get a few big things right today–a Simpson-Bowles-like grand bargain on spending and tax reform that unleashes entrepreneurship, a deal on immigration that allows the most energetic and smartest immigrants to enrich our country and a plan on energy that allows us to tap all these new sources in environmentally safe ways–no one could touch us as a country.”–Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times.

* “It’s not that they’re running a ‘Do Nothing Congress’–they’re running an “Undo Everything Congress.’ Any jackass can kick down the barn.”–Retiring U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-NY, bemoaning the passing of “moderate Republicans.”

* “Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers’ concept of limited government is dead.”–Entertainer-turned-conservative activist Ted Nugent.

* “I will not be attending this year’s convention, nor any Republican convention in the future, until the party focuses on a bigger, bolder, more confident future for the United States–a future based on problem-solving, inclusiveness and a willingness to address the trust deficit, which is every bit as corrosive as our fiscal and economic deficits.”–One time GOP presidential hopeful and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.

* “No economy can grow faster than its transportation network allows.”–U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

* “What Obama wants to muster is this time when Americans worked together to achieve certain goals. But the actual story was much more tawdry and often revolved around people making a lot of money.”–Richard White, Stanford University historian.

* “President Obama believes in ‘insourcing.'”–Tag line from a pro-Obama super PAC (Priorities USA Action) TV ad.

* “People don’t mind rich politicians. … But a significant number are bothered by people who fetishize their wealth or use tricks (like offshore tax havens) to avoid the burdens of normal citizens.”–Timothy Egan, New York Times.

* “All the evidence we have so far suggests that drones do better at both identifying the terrorist and avoiding collateral damage than anything else we have.”–Bradley J. Strawser, assistant professor of philosophy at the Naval Postgraduate School.

* “Penn State should keep the Joe Paterno statue. Just move it so he is looking the other way.”–Mike Rosenberg, Sports Illustrated.

* “Travel is the search for meaning, not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of others. The humility required for genuine travel is exactly what is missing from its opposite extreme, tourism.”–Ilan Stavans, Amherst College professor of literature.

* “Preventing illness is the surest way to  combat health care costs. It is the cheapest and best ‘public option.’ Eat right, move more, don’t smoke and drive carefully.”–Rao Masunuru, M.D., president of the Pasco County Medical Society.

* “The president has made restoration of the Everglades a national priority.”–U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in announcing that an additional $80 million has been set aside for wetlands restoration.

* “If we come across as a plain vanilla business school, we won’t get far.”–Moez Limayem, the new dean of USF’s College of Business.

How refreshing to see prominent news coverage of a young, up-and-coming, star-power-generating Florida-Cuban–who isn’t Marco Rubio. Danell Leyva, who came to Miami from Cuba with his mother nearly two decades ago, will lead the American men’s gymnastics team in the upcoming London Olympics.

Get ready now for that up-close-and-personal back story that the networks do so well to tease events featuring Americans. And the 20-year-old Leyva, who had asthma and allergies as a chubby kid, is more than a feel-good story. He’s also a multiple-medal favorite. Buena suerte, Danell.

* “Today the Egyptian people have established a new life, with real freedom and real democracy. … The judicial power, the executive power, the legislative power–we will all go forward together.”–Mohammed Morsi after being sworn in as the first democratically elected president of Egypt.

* “You have given our party a second chance. We will honor that with results.”–Newly-elected Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that had been out of power since 2000.

* “(Mitt Romney) seems to play everything safe, make no news except burn off Hispanics.”–Media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

* “We have to keep our president in office because in the blink of an eye, it can go back to the way it was before.”–Actress Angela Bassett addressing campaign volunteers for President Barack Obama in St. Petersburg.

* “The constitutionality of Arizona’s ‘papers, please’ law seems to depend on the politeness with which police deliver the ‘please’ part.”–Michael Gerson, Washington Post.

* “… In a perfect world, I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don’t give that up by being a journalist.”–CNN’s Anderson Cooper in publicly announcing that he is gay.

* “Whatever the politics, today’s decision was a victory for people all over this country whose lives are more secure because of this law.”–President Barack Obama after the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act.

* “What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States. And this is I will act to repeal Obamacare.”–Mitt Romney.

* “…One of the great constitutional finesses of all time. He (Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts) managed to uphold the central conservative argument against Obamacare, while at the same time finding a narrow definitional dodge to uphold the law–and thus prevented the court from being seen as having overturned, presumably on political grounds, the signature legislation of this administration.”–Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post.

* “Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn’t a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.”–Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

* “We’ve got one last chance here to beat Obamacare, and we can do that in the November election.”–Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

* “The Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the Supreme Court. It is my hope that politicians like Rick Scott and Pam Bondi will now finally get to work on moving Florida forward. Enough with the partisan crusades.”–Florida Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg.

* “This is a tax on the American people, and that’s how it was upheld.”–Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

* “We’re not going to implement Obamacare in Florida.”–Florida Gov. Rick Scott.

* “My first reaction to the decision by the Supreme Court, I’m angry, and disbelief.”–Rep. Connie Mack IV.

* “A lot of us feel the health care law wasn’t perfect. But it was needed. Our system was broken, and we had to do something.”–Florida U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.

* “The Supreme Court decision is a welcome relief to families and businesses across America, and especially to Floridians. Our fight to lower health care costs for middle-class families and families with health insurance remains on track.”–Tampa U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor.

* “I would like to see somebody internationally known, that gives us a competitive edge to bring business to this port. I think it’s important to have those contacts.”–Tampa Port Authority Commissioner Stephen Swindal on a key requirement for the next port director.