Tomorrow night finally comes the first of the four presidential and vice-presidential debates that will take place throughout October, and it will be moderated by former PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer.
The Commission on Presidential Debates named Lehrer, Bob Schieffer of CBS, Candy Crowley of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News to moderate this year’s events. The difference between Lehrer and the others is that they're not retired.
I know it's sacrilege to take on the 78-year-old former PBS News Hour host, but what about spreading the wealth around? This will be the 12th time Lehrer will be moderating a presidential debate, so apparently everyone loves Jim? Well, we know that his former colleague, Gwen Ifill, who hosted in 2004 and 2008, was reportedly upset about her former colleague getting the nod this time around. Judy Woodruff would also have been a great choice. Lehrer complains about the heat he's been taking since being selected in a story in today's NY Times, incidentally.
On to the news:
The Republican Party of Florida has been busy congratulating themselves for firing Strategic Alliance Consulting, the GOP-led company that was found to be responsible for turning in a number of bad registration forms in Palm Beach County and 10 other counties. South Florida Congressman Ted Deutch yesterday called on Governor Rick Scott to form a task force to investigate what went wrong here.
USDA head Tom Vilsack announced yesterday that Florida will receive $9 million to develop a method to eliminate citrus greening, a disease that Senator Bill Nelson said endangers the entire citrus industry in Florida.
And a few members of the Occupy Tampa movement hung out for a couple of hours yesterday in what was billed as the first anniversary of the local cause.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2012.