As the returns coming in last night showed that Mark Sanford was going to defeat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the special election for Congress in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza tweeted, "Amazing. Just amazing."

No, Mr. Cillizza. it's not.

Enough already about the formerly disgraced governor won back his old (very conservative) congressional district, okay? Bottom line is that aversion to federal spending amongst much of the electorate there – as well as an aversion to anything about Nancy Pelosi, played a far bigger part obviously than Sanford's personal foibles. And you know what? In New York City, if formerly disgraced Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner gets in the race, and perhaps even wins it, will that mean the end of civilization, or that New Yorkers are morally depraved? Nope. It's because the electorate will take those issues into consideration when they make their final choice.

Now you might be saying, what about here in Hillsborough County? After all, didn't disgraced property appraiser Rob Turner lose seat because of the tawdry details out of what he called a "personal affair?" No doubt, it hurt him substantially, certainly in the GOP primary against Ronda Storms. And in the general, he did lose to moderate Democrat Bob Henriquez. But Henriquez was a known quantity, and a moderate, and Storms had never won county wide. Colbert-Busch had never ran for anything before last night. So there are a number of factors at play here, obviously, with no set hard rules. But enough of the criticism by Democrats blasting South Carolinians for their hypocrisy. It goes on with both sides, and that district, my friends, was not friendly towards Democrats (I learned last night that Democrats have now failed to pick up a GOP-held seat in South Carolina for 48 consecutive House races).

Tomorrow night there's a zoning hearing about that proposed high-rise apartment tower in downtown Tampa. There are some folks who live around the area who aren't too pleased about it – though their complaints probably won't go too far.

Local officials in Tampa/Hillsborough County are psyched about hiring a dynamic new film commissioner to try to bring more TV, film and commercial work to Tampa Bay.

And you might have heard that the 50th anniversary of Fort De Soto Park takes place this Saturday. There was a bit of controversy a few years ago when the Pinellas County Commission opted to begin charging visitors to the park – but that $5 fee will be relaxed this Saturday for the anniversary, so go crazy.

This article appears in May 2-8, 2013.