Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah to all of our readers out there today.

While those fortunate enough this weekend will gather with friends and family to eat, shop, watch lots of pro and college football, see movies and do other fun things together, there's another group of folks who are going to be under a lot of anxiety by this weekend.

They're called congressional Democrats, wondering how well the Obamacare website, healthcare.gov, will be working.

That's because after the disastrous rollout of the site became apparent last month, President Obama, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other White House officials vowed that the site would be completely working by the end of November.

That would be this weekend.

As the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, however, key officials have been lowering the bar in recent days and weeks on that promise.
President Obama recently said the website would be functioning "for the majority of people who are using it," while Press Secretary Jay Carney has suggested that eight in 10 people would be able to get on the site successfully. Yesterday Secretary Sebelius said "We are definitely on track to have a significantly different user experience by the end of this month."

So the question then becomes: What if it isn't working any better? (By the way, a new CNN poll shows that 54 percent either support Obamacare, or say it's not liberal enough).

Although some pundits say the rollout debacle ensures that Republicans will seize the day in the 2014 elections, that's an absurd thing to predict nearly a year before an election. Unfortunately for Alex Sink and the Democratic Party, the special election to replace Bill Young in Pinellas County takes place in March, not next November. Conventional wisdom today (especially from Republicans) is that the problems with health care will redound on Sink.

But then again, maybe it won't. If the election were to be held next month, Sink might be in serious trouble. But she's not running against either Kathleen Peters or David Jolly until the springtime, when presumably the website will be running more efficiently. Of course, there could be more negative fallout from the plan that we don't know about yet, but Sink still dominates the two Republicans on name recognition, and in a flash poll last week had a solid edge over her potential challengers. But just like in 2010 when she lost to Rick Scott for governor, the president's health care overhaul isn't doing a lot of favors for Florida's former CFO.

Meanwhile yesterday the National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a very sarcastic pamphlet designed to "help" Sink answer questions about the ACA. But the DCCC has always been busy, blasting Kathleen Peters for allegedly flip-flopping when talking about the national flood insurance program that is expected to hit tens of thousands of PInellas County property owners.

With the most concentrated period of shopping for toys about to commence, the Florida Public Interest Research Group, or FPIRG, released a new report and held a news conference yesterday warning parents and others who will purchase gifts for young ones about the dangerous toys that are being sold in stores today.

And the St. Pete City Council's decision to take Penny for Pinellas money to help build a new police station at the expense of focusing on local neighborhoods is upsetting a lot of folks. CL's Terence Smith attended Monday night's meeting at City Hall to capture the reactions of those for and against the plan.

This article appears in Nov 28 – Dec 4, 2013.