William March has scoop on Bill Nelson & Debbie Wasserman-Schultz ally and lobbyist Allison Tant, who wants other Tampa Bay-area Dems to quit so she can qualify to run for Florida Democratic Party Chairmanship; This only proves wisdom of current Chair Rod Smith's recommendations all over again about how party leaderships battles should be done; Miami Herald is completely ignoring this issue -and Annette Taddeo-Goldstein. Tant pis pour elles!

I hadn't expected to find myself writing about internecine Democratic Party leadership battles in Florida for two posts in a row but here we are nonetheless.
Yesterday, I wrote about the battle for the Broward County Democratic Party chairmanship between challenger and part activist Cynthia M. Busch and incumbent and lobbyist Mitch Caesar.
This afternoon, the Tampa Tribune's William March was johnny-on-the-spot with more news about inter-party grudge matches coming to a head in the Sunshine State.
  

Tampa Tribune

Fresh squeezed Polics blog

Tant ready for a battle for state Dems chair

Posted Dec 5, 2012 by William March

Updated Dec 5, 2012 at 04:32 PM

Prominent Democratic fundraiser Allison Tant of Tallahassee said Wednesday she was recruited by Sen. Bill Nelson and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to run for the state Democratic Party chairmanship, and that she’s prepared for a battle if necessary in seeking the office.

Read the rest of the post at: http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/news/story/tant-ready-for-a-battle-for-state-dems-chair/

So, what most accurately describes this situation above?
a.) Changing the rules in mid-stream (mid-game), or,

b.) special rules for special people

Or is it both as I think?

If Allison Tant and her allies have to either induce other Democrats who were already duly-elected by other Democrats to quit -despite her knowing the qualification rules months ago- or even has to engage in a degree of intimidation in order to get a specific result that rewards someone who, coyly-but-unconvincingly says that she never thought about running for the position until last Friday, do you think the bigger problem here might be the party's rules themselves, that DO NOT reward actual hard work by party members and activists on the ground, but DO reward party pooh-bahs with high self-regard?

And really, a state Democratic Party chair who is a longtime lobbyist?
Like Mitch Caesar times 67? (Sixty-seven being the number of counties in the state.)

Is that really the road that the state party wants to travel after so many Obamaphiles have decried the horrors of corporate lobbying and influence peddling to voters for a year straight?
I think not.

And where would the conflict of interest even begin to cover THAT situation?

Given this delicious bit of recon intelligence offered by William March this afternoon, I re-direct your attention again to my post of yesterday regarding Tampa Bay Times reporter/columnist Adam C. Smith's interview with current Florida Democratic party Chair Rod Smith, and how some of the comments seem to me to be an almost a perfect description of the situation in Broward County.
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/hmm-m-florida-democratic-party-chair.html

Rod Smith's prescriptions for Fla Democrats

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/rod-smiths-prescriptions-fla-democrats

What is the number one recommended change cited by Rod Smith?

Change the way party chairs are elected, opening up eligibility to everyone rather than just to party activists who have been elected local state committeemen or state committeewoman and county chairs. The current system breeds "real subterfuge" where would-be chairs, himself included in 2010, at the last minute strike a deal to get elected to their local party leadership (as Annette Taddeo-Goldstein was elected Miami-Dade chairwoman Monday night).

Oops!

Where in the Miami Herald have you seen anything about Annette Taddeo-Goldstein did to get her position? 
Nowhere.

Here, by their own accounts, is the sum total of her name in-print in the Herald this year:

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=Annette+Taddeo-Goldstein

Nowhere in print in the past four weeks since the election and nowhere online prior to Monday late night.
By the way, since I don't want to miss this opportunity, most people would agree with me that simply printing a press release is NOT journalism
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/12/miami-dade-dems-choose-first-latina-chair-annette-taddeo-goldstein.html

So the Herald had nobody at or outside of the meeting Monday night and wrote absolutely NOTHING about what really happened Monday night?
That's also NOT real journalism.

But of course, being the Herald, they could rationalize it because at least they got to use the word "Latina" in their headline.
Only one of their favorite words!

Thus, even a well-informed Herald reader would NOT have even known that she was angling to be state party chair based on... well, what exactly?

Her failed congressional candidacy in 2008 and her failed Miami-Dade County Commission candidacy in 2010?
The video of her on YouTube that a grand total of 32 people, including me, have seen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18T2jYKAec8

Me, I think that after what has just happened with the election, I DON'T think the rest of the state is going to vote to reward a Hispanic woman from Miami with the title of State Chair, who just qualified to run on Monday night.
Especially a woman who, despite having run for Congress four years ago, is still largely an unknown quantity, and a woman who, per my many criticisms of the state of journalism in South Florida, was NEVER mentioned in the Herald this year regarding her political activities even once.

Not once!
And this is the person who should be in charge of the state party?

A woman whom everyone says is personally very nice but who, to be honest, has actually done MUCH LESS than MANY other Dems running for county chairs throughout the state?
Like Cynthia M. Busch for instance?

How exactly would that square with any semblance or notions of merit?

Also, what exactly did Annette Taddeo earn from The Tuck School at Dartmouth?

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http://www.annettetaddeo.com/

Syria bleeds while dithering O 'condemns' -Charles Krauthammer calls out Obama's ineffectual foreign policy on Syria that's unsatisfactory to GOP, Democrats AND our overseas allies

Above, the segment that Channel 4 News in Sweden ran this morning on Syria, as the United States continues "to condemn."
How's that working out so far?
It’s time for President Obama to back up his rhetoric with firm action.




The Washington Post
While Syria burns
By Charles Krauthammer
Published: April 26, 2012

Last year President Obama ordered U.S. intervention in Libya under the grand new doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect.” Moammar Gaddafi was threatening a massacre in Benghazi. To stand by and do nothing “would have been a betrayal of who we are,” explained the president.

In the year since, the government of Syria has more than threatened massacres. It has carried them out. Nothing hypothetical about the disappearances, executions, indiscriminate shelling of populated neighborhoods. More than 9,000 are dead.

Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/while-syria-burns/2012/04/26/gIQAQUC0jT_story.html


-----
For more on Obama's failed foreign policy re Syria, see my previous posts on the subject:


April 29, 2011 blog post titled, Marco Rubio is crystal clear in Foreign Policy magazine - "How America Must Respond to the Massacre in Syria
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/marco-rubio-is-crystal-clear-in-foreign.html


March 20, 2011 titled, Marco Rubio on dithering O: “So if Russia doesn’t care and China doesn’t care and we care but won’t do anything about it, who’s it up to, the French?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/marco-rubio-on-dithering-o-so-if-russia.html


It's completely impossible for me or any of my like-minded friends to think of any time since he's been in the U.S. Senate when 'nice guy' Bill Nelson has said anything nearly as pointed or effectively as what Rubio has done repeatedly on Syria since last year.


My vote for Senate will be FOR people with similar intelligent and articulate views and AGAINST someone who wants to be a U.S. Senator because they think it would be cool.
That completely eliminates Connie Mack IV and puts George LeMieux back in the U.S. Senate.


-----
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/


http://www.foreignaffairs.com/


http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorMarcoRubio


http://www.heritage.org/

More proof -as if necessary- that the Miami Herald and Sen. Bill Nelson are closer than ever to hitting the iceberg like the Titanic...

More proof -as if necessary- that the Miami Herald and Sen. Bill Nelson are closer than ever to hitting the iceberg like the Titanic...

Miami Herald

Corrections & Clarifications

Posted on Wednesday, 10.19.11

A story on a wake in Cuba for dissident Laura Pollán, which appeared on Page 10A in Tuesday’s Miami Herald, included the wrong party designation for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Not mentioned -who at the state's largest newspaper wrote the story with the wrong information: Juan O. Tamayo.

And since he's with El Nuevo Herald, and we all know what their reputation for scrupulous fidelity to accuracy and facts are -like Lindsay Lohan's- this surprises whom exactly?

Also not mentioned -the name of the sleeping Herald editors who didn't know that 11-year U.S. Senator Bill Nelson is a Democrat, albeit, NOT the former Cleveland Browns QB of the same name. Nelson's the only statewide-elected Democrat still in office in Florida, a fact that is very likely to end next year. A fact that you'd think at least one editor at the largest newspaper in the fourth-largest state in the country should have noticed.

Yes, some of you may recognize that name, as Tamayo is the same exact guy who, more often than you'd think made sense, curiously, gets front page coverage of his pieces in the Sunday Herald's laughable excuse of a public policy section called Issues & Ideas.

The very section of the newspaper that rarely if ever contains a single use of the word "Broward" in an editorial, column or essay written by a Herald employee, or Guest Op-ed author.

But which often has 3-4 separate things about a country called Cuba.

In case you have somehow missed it when I've mentioned it before here on the blog, under the current news management leadership put in place here by McClatchy Company, the Herald often goes many, many months in a row without EVER mentioning the name of the South Florida county where 40-45% of their own readers live in that particular "section" of the newspaper, which used to be six pages and which many months ago shrank to four pages.

And four feeble pages at that!

In fact, Tamayo had a piece this past Sunday on Broward Commissioner Sue Gunzburger's upcoming trip to Brazil as part of FL Gov. Rick Scott's trade mission..

Well, actually he and the Herald didn't write about that, though they should have.

(Comm. Gunzburger leaves this coming weekend for about five days or so, minus two days of travel since flight is over 8 hours long.)

Per usual, Tamayo wrote about something involving Cuba that I'm quite sure that 95% of the Herald readers waking up Sunday morning couldn't have cared less about -the Archbishop of Havana.

And the word "Broward" did NOT appear anywhere in that section on Sunday.

Just like the week before and... but there were THREE separate pieces about Cuba on Sunday in their four feeble pages.

The Herald makes no secret of wanting to cover Cuba infinitely better than it does Broward County... and does, often writing about Cuba in the State & Local section so much that you wonder why they continue the pretense at all.

Why won't the Herald bite-the-bullet and print a separate section that's focused on Cuba and Latin America news for those readers in South Florida who can't get enough of that, and then, correspondingly, actually run MORE articles about Broward in the local news section?

Perhaps because they suspect that given how the Herald has foolishly force-fed Cuba-related articles down Herald readers' throats for years, given a choice, English-language readers will overwhelmingly ignore a new Latin-oriented section and the ads contained therein.

But if they do, wouldn't beleaguered readers have ample reason for doing so?

Yes, which is part of why Herald management has to whistle-past-the-graveyard and can't publicly acknowledge that chronic over-reach of theirs.

Trust me, I've spoken to many Herald employees the past eight years since returning to the area from Washington, D.C., and almost every time this topic comes up, they confide that they personally believe that fear of readers ignoring their flood of Cuba & Latin America stories in a separate section is part of the reason why the Herald does things in such a ham-handed way and crams Cuba stories into the local news section rather than Section A.

You know, the local section section, the one that for YEARS didn't have a single story about the mis-adventures in democracy and governance at Hallandale Beach City Hall or even show up for HB City Commission meetings?

(And by "ignore" it, I mean just like I and so many others ignore their awful Living Today section that's so often full of dim-witted stories about diets and the celebs who love them and chick-lit style self-empowerment pieces that are ludicrous to read.

That section is 180 degrees from the way the Washington Post's famous and popular "Style" section I got used to reading every day for 15 years is edited and focused like a laser-beam on what Washingtonians want to know more about.

It's not like night and day, it IS night and day! )

As I've mentioned here in the past two weeks, the evidence is overwhelming that while McClatchy and Herald management have no qualms about letting Herald columnist and Editorial Board member Myriam Marquez and columnist Fabiola Santiago -see my photo above from Wednesday's "An example to inspire the Cuban people"- keep writing about Cuba in a section that purports to be about news re Florida and South Florida, they have ZERO interest in hiring someone to be a columnist that opines largely about Broward County issues, trends and personalities for the 40-45% of the area that lives there.

If they wanted to, they would have.

They haven't.

They take us completely for granted!

As I said in that Oct. 3rd blog post of mine about Marco Rubio that happened to mention Marquez and her complete disinterest in anything north of the county line the past 39 months,

Marco Rubio vs. Univision - An attempted political smear FINALLY awakens the Miami Herald to Univision's thread-bare claim to journalism. Finalmente!

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/marco-rubio-vs-univision-attempted.html

living in Broward County in the year 2011 is to know that the Miami Herald has no interest in writing about the world you and your family and friends live in, even while constantly telling you about people you've never heard of who live in another country hundreds and hundreds of miles away.

And yet, the Herald continues to impart a sense of importance to these other people's lives that's completely out of proportion to the reality of its readers, while ignoring Broward county and municipal elected officials mis-adventures and poor decision-making here that DO affect our daily lives.

And not surprisingly, the logical consequence is that failing to see their world accurately and fairly reflected in the largest area newspaper in South Florida, more and more well-educated and well-informed people in Broward County who were once readers have completely stopped reading the Miami Herald... and seeing the advertising that appears in it.

It's dead to them.

Iceberg dead ahead!

Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan discuss the federal budget and why they're against 'business as usual' votes in Washington that preserve the status quo

Fox News Channel video: Sen. Marco Rubio on 'Fox News Sunday' with host Chris Wallace - April 3, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZRDCHGMILs

Speaking of being articulate and specific about what your own personal policy positions are regarding the looming federal budget battle and the national debt, so that there's no confusion or misunderstanding, as we were the other day with Marco Rubio, the opposite take on that approach causes me to ask aloud whether Sen. Bill Nelson is still among us.

The South Florida news media seems not to be too keen to actually ask Nelson where he stands on any of these things and what he wants to do or cut or anything.

No, they almost seem to be going out of their way to ignore Nelson, which causes me to ask whether that's for his lack of a cogent plan, strategy or framework, or whether it's just that they know in advance that, after eleven years in the Senate, he'll say absolutely nothing noteworthy in his usual earnest, plodding style, and they don't want to waste their time doing that, knowing that it's an hour they'll never ever have again.

Which is one of the reasons that while today is April 3rd, you CAN'T find a single story in the Miami Herald this year where Bill Nelson actually talks about the federal budget and the debt ceiling, and what he thinks should be done or how he will vote.
Go ahead, I dare you.
It simply can't be found -there isn't one.

Yes, with every passing day, collectively, the Miami Herald and the rest of the South Florida news media just continue walking deeper-and-deeper into the black hole of utter irrelevancy...




Fox News Channel video: Rep. Paul Ryan, Chairman of U.S. House Budget Comm.: on Fox News Channel's 'Sean Hannity Show' - March 1, 2011 - "House GOP Will Lead Where the President Has Failed"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-bgVl7EhNI

-----

Orlando Sentinel

www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/views/os-mike-thomas-medicare-040311-20110402,0,2086543.column

Rubio is right to push for cuts to senior programs

Mike Thomas

COMMENTARY

9:49 PM EDT, April 2, 2011

Marco Rubio says he isn't interested in running for vice president in 2012. And to confirm that, he then said we have to scale back senior entitlement programs.

That got him lots of national attention, and a resounding round of silence from his Republican colleagues in Washington.

They didn't win the U.S. House this year, with an eye on the White House next year, only to risk it all by alienating the people who comprise the biggest voting bloc.

You will not see a Republican pointing to the retirees at a Tea Party gathering and saying, "You're the biggest part of the problem.''

Does anyone remember "A Roadmap for America's Future'' put out by Paul Ryan, the whiz-kid, budget-slashing congressman from Wisconsin who wanted to overhaul Medicare?

Or how about that report by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that recommended entitlement cuts?

Associate the word entitlement with the words cut or reform and off you go to the Bermuda Triangle.

I hope Marco fares better.

He says he would keep existing entitlements intact for those older than 55, an attempt to appease what former Sen. Alan Simpson calls the "greediest generation.''

This might work for Social Security, where there is time to fix it.

But Medicare is dragging us off the cliff now. It is so daunting and so complex that Washington is paralyzed.

Tackling Medicare not only means taking on the seniors, but the entire medical industrial complex that depends on Medicare's billions. Sending old folks for body scans is a huge part of the economy.

Taking money away is very hard for a political system designed to give it away.

Making matters worse, many seniors believe that since they have paid into Medicare their entire lives, they have earned their benefits. Reducing benefits equates to theft.

But the cost of medical care has risen so sharply that, on average, seniors now pay for less than half the benefits they receive.

This is what differentiates Medicare from Social Security, where workers indeed have paid for most of their benefits.

With Social Security, they get a single check each month for the same amount. That makes planning relatively easy.

But Medicare is an open checkbook that pays for an unlimited amount of services.

The medical industry has adapted by creating a system based on quantity. More specialists. More tests. More procedures. More medications.

Outcomes and cost-effectiveness do not matter.

This has driven up costs while at the same time we have an exploding population of seniors. Medicare is, by far, the biggest driver of our long-term national debt.

Medicaid, which provides care to the poor, would be right there with it but states share this burden. And a growing percent of the Medicaid budget is directed at nursing-home care.

Sure, we can cut fraud and waste, as the refrain goes. But any savings will be dwarfed by the sheer number of baby boomers entering the system.

During the next 20 years, we will add eight beneficiaries to the Medicare rolls for every new worker. And these seniors will be more obese and laden with more self-inflicted chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Help, we need more immigrants!

I am 56. And as much as I'd like Marco Rubio to include me in the existing system, I don't want to make my kids my indentured servants by having to pay for it.

A worker making $20,000 a year should not have to subsidize health care for snow birds sitting in their Palm Beach condos. We need to adjust premiums, deductibles and co-pays according to income.

People are too disconnected from the cost of their health care. And that encourages abuse of the system.

We need more gatekeepers. We need fewer specialists, and they need to make less money. We need more general practitioners and they need to make more money. We need nurses to diagnose the flu instead of doctors.

We need longer wait times for non-emergency procedures.

We need more docs in Walmart and more Solantic clinics in strip malls.

We need more end-of-life planning to avoid the onslaught of machines that only delay the inevitable.

We need more plans and cheaper options.

We need what we can afford.

We have no choice. The Chinese are going to stop buying our debt.

The longer we put this off, the worse it will be.

It is why Marco Rubio is one of the most important people in Washington right now.

Reader comments at: http://discussions.orlandosentinel.com/20/orlnews/os-mike-thomas-medicare-040311-20110402/10

The Mike Thomas blog: http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_columnist_mikethomas/

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http://www.spacehelpwanted.com/blog/

http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorMarcoRubio

http://www.youtube.com/user/RepPaulRyan

http://prosperityproject.org/

Marco Rubio on dithering O: “So if Russia doesn’t care and China doesn’t care and we care but won’t do anything about it, who’s it up to, the French?”

Sen. Marco Rubio questions William J. Burns about President's Obama's "Puzzling Inaction" over Libya at Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the dithering approach to foreign policy and confuses both our allies and our enemies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Brn-7fOGGY

Marco Rubio: “So if Russia doesn’t care and China doesn’t care and we care but won’t do anything about it, who’s it up to, the French?”
Or, "How Obama Turned France Into a Leading World Power" -and saved Nicolas Sarkozy.




Sen. Marco Rubio Questions U.S. Involvement In U.N. "Charade" at confirmation hearing of Joseph Torsella to be U.S. Representative to the United Nations for U.N. Management and Reform. March 16, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcC0ChGuXSk

Marco Rubio's performance at these Senate Foreign Relations hearings, so many of which I attended when I lived in the D.C. area for almost 15 years, with Jesse Helms or Joe Biden as Comm. Chair, are exactly why I enthusiastically voted for him last November over Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek, neither one of which was capable of doing that in so effective a manner.
So Florida would have a voice for common sense, effectively articulated.
Just like I repeatedly said last year, no?

It's completely impossible for me or any of my friends to think of any time since he's been in the U.S. Senate when 'nice guy' Bill Nelson has said anything nearly as pointed or effectively as what Rubio did twice this week, even when he needed to.
Just saying, compare and contrast.

Next year, my vote for Senate will be FOR people with similar intelligent and articulate views and AGAINST someone who wants to be a U.S. Senator because they think it would be cool.
That completely eliminates most of the announced candidates thus far -Connie Mack IV or the perpetually ethically-challenged Mike Haridopolos.
They are OUT!

And reformer Paula Dockery looks even better qualified than she did before this week.

And please don't publicly call what President Obama does in foreign policy 'dithering' or sleepwalking, call it quiet reflection or walking with his eyes closed -or something else.
To do otherwise hurts his supporter's feelings.
Especially his supporters in the American news media.

-----

USA Today
On Libya, how have global players done?
By Justin Paulette

On the eve of a possible war in Libya, the major players on the world stage have taken their turns and staked out their positions. Yet many players have postured themselves in ways that seem to be reversals of their usual roles. This shift in global strategy is largely the domino effect of a shift in American self-identity under President Obama, and an omen of the future under his new foreign policy for America.

The United Nations: Though espousing lofty principles of international peace and security, the U.N. has largely proved an ineffective millstone around the world's neck over the past half-century. As recently as January 2011, a U.N. report uncritically praised Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's human rights record.

Read the rest of this Op-Ed at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-03-19-paulette18_ST_N.htm


The American Spectator
How Obama Turned France Into a Leading World Power
By John R. Guardiano on 3.20.11 @ 11:08AM

One of the more sadly amusing spectacles of the American-European-Arab dance over Libya is the complete and utter role-reversal that has taken place. Indeed, the Europeans are leading; the Americans are following; and the Arabs are applauding -- publicly!

Read the rest of this post at:
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/03/20/how-obama-turned-france-into-a


From Krishnan Guru-Murthy writing in Channel 4's Snow Mail this afternoon:

It is now more clear than ever that the Americans are in command of the attacks against Libya. And the coalition is already in trouble tonight with the Arab League chief condemning the airstrikes. The European-led narrative had been executed very well - the French jets got maximum worldwide publicity for leading the onslaught. But shortly afterwards it was American cruise missiles that did the bulk of the work against Libyan air defences. A British submarine and Tornado jets were involved too. This morning the American Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen declared the operation a success. Libya claimed sixty four people had been killed. Russia called for an end to what it called indiscriminate attacks by the coalition. And then a diplomatic bombshell from the Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa - saying he wanted civilians protected not bombed. It is hard to imagine what he thought he was signing up to yesterday in Paris - but by the time he got back to Cairo the tune was different. So it is now down to countries like Qatar and UAE to demonstrate that there is still Arab support for the action - that was a crucial part of the justification of military action for many. Tonight we'll have the latest from Tripoli, Benghazi and beyond.

You can watch the last seven days of Channel 4 News on their catch up player - available on iPhones and iPads too: http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/



Channel 4 News Foreign Affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller in Tripoli.
http://bcove.me/jnx5ex02


Channel 4 News Internation editor Lindsey Hilsum in Benghazi
http://bcove.me/ngr3ij6w

--

See also: Congressional Hearings Offer Opportunity for U.N. Budgetary Scrutiny
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/03/Congressional-Hearings-Offer-Opportunity-for-UN-Budgetary-Scrutiny

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorMarcoRubio
http://www.heritage.org/

You had me at Sofia Vergara! NY Mag Daily Intel blog reports that Nick Loeb may run vs. Bill Nelson in 2012; he's 'reportedly' dating actress Vergara

Actress Sofia Vergara, via photobucket.com

New York Magazine
Daily Intel Main
This Woman Could Be a Senator’s Wife
By Chris Rovzar
January 14, 2011 at 12:15 PM

Nick Loeb, the "tall and handsome scion to New York's Loeb Rhoades banking fortune," had to abandon his U.S. Senate run in Florida in 2009 because his wife left him. He felt it was unfair to conduct a campaign while dealing with such personal turmoil, so he paid back all his donors (out of his own pocket) and called off the run.

Read the rest of this very popular post at:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/01/this_woman_could_be_a_senators.html

As of now, there are 145 comments, and none of the first 20 are about Nick Loeb's personal stance on the role of the federal government in a citizen's daily life.
Imagine that.

The Palm Beach Post's Jose Lambiet http://www.page2live.com/ wrote a bit about the Nick Loeb conundrum last year -and his serious car accident in Bel-Air near Sofia Vergara's home-
http://www.page2live.com/2010/08/24/ex-florida-senate-candidate-nick-loeb-injured-in-car-crash/ which featured this photo essay:
http://page2live.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlargePopup.asp?image=29724487&event=1012290&CategoryID=59758&pSlideshow=1

But then how do you photograph someone's personality?

And a story like this won't stay a secret for long among attention-starved Washington, so The Hill is already saying...
http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/7823-sofia-vergaras-boyfriend-mulls-senate-run

You all know how much I love Sweden, but from the looks of things, given our particular geographical location in the Sunshine State, Colombia looks to have home-field advantage in this one.


http://www.oceandrive.com/home-page/articles/sofia-vergara-spices-up-primetime

And before you ask, I know nothing about the wife of Mike Haridopolos, the Florida Senate President, who has already announced he's running for next year's GOP nomination to run against Nelson.

http://www.senatormike.com/
http://www.rollcall.com/members/652.html

He looks like he ought to be the number-two at a Hollywood studio and a regular at Laker games, or the lead anchor at an LA TV station: "From the Southland's news leader, Mike Haridopolous, Eye...witness News!"

Staffer Salaries for Sens. Bill Nelson & Mel Martinez and South Florida Congressmen

2008 Salary staffer information courtesy of Legistorm, http://www.legistorm.com

Sen. Bill Nelson

http://www.legistorm.com/member/75/Sen_Bill_Nelson.html

Sen. Mel Martinez

http://www.legistorm.com/member/68/Sen_Mel_Martinez.html

17

http://www.legistorm.com/member/371/Rep_Kendrick_Meek.html

18

http://www.legistorm.com/member/446/Rep_Ileana_Ros_Lehtinen.html

19

http://www.legistorm.com/member/531/Rep_Robert_Wexler.html

20

http://www.legistorm.com/member/521/Rep_Debbie_Wasserman_Schultz.html

21

http://www.legistorm.com/member/206/Rep_Lincoln_Diaz_Balart.html

22

http://www.legistorm.com/member/848/Rep_Ron_Klein.html

23

http://www.legistorm.com/member/269/Rep_Alcee_Hastings.html

25

http://www.legistorm.com/member/207/Rep_Mario_Diaz_Balart.html

If you don't already have them on your list of Favorites, consider adding Legistorm at http://www.legistorm.com/

and the Center for Responsive Politics website, http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php

Bill Nelson as Veep? April's Fool in August.

This is from the Florida Trend magazine email I just received.

Senator Bill Nelson is a nice guy and all, but he was largely a cipher even to politically-savvy Floridians who were actually in Washington for some time when he was in the House and Senate. (Like me.)

He may've been one of the five most anonymous senators from the pont-of-view of visitors to the U.S. Capitol, more likely to be mistaken for a visiting realtor, golf coach or an agri-business lobbyist than anything else.

The fact that nobody seems willing to say publicly that even with Dems in charge, he still couldn't get some much-needed funding for long-range Hurricane satellite imagery(?) last year, should tell you something.

VP jokes aside, Bill Nelson going to a foreign funeral would induce nothing but sleepy people in uncomfortable chairs, and he certainly is not qualified to be president.
But then I've never thought Obama was, either, and I was in Chicago when he was there, too.

http://floridatrend.com/article.asp?aID=49607#link3

MIAMI: Obama's Big Veep Surprise: Bill Nelson?
So speculates the Times of London. "Expect the unexpected," the newspaper says. So, step forward Bill Nelson, who represents the swing state of Florida in the Senate where he sits on the armed services, foreign relations and intelligence committees." The story notes that bloggers typing "Obamanelson.com" earlier this week discovered they were redirected to Obama’s official campaign website. No such trick for Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, widely considered a top contender for the veep post. But as the Times notes, the computer situation could simply point to Nelson's "Nebraskan namesake, Senator Ben Nelson, ... Bill and Ben — the long shot men." [Source: Miami Herald] More on politics from Florida Trend:

Florida's future: Leaning Republican, Again