Yesterday the national political news media feasted on Alex Sink's "cheating" incident at Monday night's debate at USF. You can read all about it elsewhere. However, it can't be good news for the Democrat, who needs every single vote she can garner and every bit of positive news coverage in the homestretch, and talking about firing her lobbyist/campaign aide for sending the message via a smart phone took her off message yesterday. Then again, we don't think Monday night's debate performance by Sink was anything to write home about anyway, as she smiled and laughed nervously throughout the forum.
Meanwhile, Sink did damage control on another front yesterday, appearing on black radio in Miami to make amends for blowing off an appearance on that show a week ago. But there are some in the black community in Tampa who aren't feeling the love for the CFO.
Speaking of not feeling the love, mild-mannered Bill Heller, in a major political fight to maintain his House District 52 seat in Pinellas County, took off the gloves yesterday against his GOP opponent Jeff Brandes in a debate at Tiger Bay in St. Pete yesterday.
The U.S. Senate race in Florida has dominated the national political wires for over a year now. But it will all be over within a week, and last night in Orlando, the final debate was held between the 3 major candidates. Nothing too eye opening to report, other than Charlie Crist decided on a different strategy in combating Marco Rubio last night; that of the "happy warrior" persona a la Ronald Reagan, as he on occasion would tsk-tsk the Republican front runner for being too negative, while he, Charlie Crist, said our best days were still ahead.
And for those of you who think this discussion of an enthusiasm gap is media hype, you might want to look at the Orlando Sentinel today. Or better yet, just read our summary – which is that 200,000 more registered Republicans than registered Democrats have already voted in Florida.
the report here.
This article appears in Oct 21-27, 2010.