"Can I have 'Midterms' for $2,000"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvhOI7Z9oKU
Above, a video showing a side of American pop culture that you'd think the South Florida news media would've already shown over-and-over by now.
In any case, seeing it puts me in the mood to recall a thing or two I once wrote in 2009 about Marco Rubio, back when the South Florida news media had all but conceded the 2010 GOP U.S. Senate nomination to Charlie Crist.
But some of us could see that what was so appealing about him to us would also prove just as appealing with Florida voters, confounding the "experts" who discounted his talk about taking the Constitution seriously.
The excerpt below is from a June 22nd, 2009 email to a Hallandale Beach friend who'd first told me weeks before about the underdog Rubio's appearance that June night in Hallandale Beach, which took place before an overflow audience at the Hallandale Beach Cultural Center.
All of my photos below are from June 22, 2009, Hallandale Beach.
That's Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the table.
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As I said earlier, if I don't get that info from you tonight, I'll write the basics about his appearance at the HB Cultural Center Tuesday night, and try to post it before I go to sleep tonight.
I may(?) also post the clueless Beth Reinhard column from Saturday's Herald that was one of the worst of the many bad columns she's penned since I returned to South Florida:
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1105950.html
She's truly awful and bereft of either insight or originality.
But by embracing DeMint, Rubio risks moving too far to the right. DeMint advocates sending illegal immigrants back to their home countries and making English the official language of the United States, which could mean that Rubio's Spanish-speaking constituents would not be able to get ballots and other government documents in their first language.
I'm going to be picking that column apart soon on my blog, as it is full not only of intellectual laziness, but factual errors, not the least of which is the comments about the language of the ballots, since the DOJ has oversight over certain states because of the federal Voting Rights Act, and that includes Florida.
You know, where we live?
Plus, because South Florida's county officials have decided that it's good public policy that ballots also appear in Spanish (and Creole), and that is supported by the majority of the local populace, Reinhard's argument is a straw man.
A good reporter would already know that.
That Beth Reinhard doesn't, or acts like she doesn't, gives you some true sense of her profound political ignorance.
Not that this is exactly Breaking News to me.
See also the New York Times:
Justices Let Stand a Central Provision of Voting Rights Act
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/us/23scotus.html
Frankly, I almost always groan after reading something Reinhard's written.
In fact, it was after reading some nonsense she'd written about Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, while I was having breakfast with my father at Denny's, that I decided I needed to finally listen to my friends back in D.C., who'd been urging me for years to start a blog when I was still living there.
Right, when all my media and political connections were close-at-hand and would've proved very useful to me in sharing some very interesting stories, anecdotes and insight that I was either eyewitness to or privy to, that had heretofore remained the domain of party chatter among very close friends with a curiosity matching mine.
10:35 p.m.
Just got your new email with attendee info. Thanks!
Confirmed Speakers: RNC Secretary Sharon Day, Broward GOP Chairman Chip LaMarca, Marco Rubio Candidate for US Senate, Lt. Col. Allen West Candidate for US Congress, Joyce Kaufman 850 AM Radio Host, and a special video presentation from Michael Steele. Performing our National Anthem, National Vocalist Lou Galterio.
