There's what Joy Cooper says -and there's reality. Here's a dose of reality to chew over; What does Jessica Sanders do exactly?

I've been sitting on this for a while now, just waiting for the right time to post it, though truth be told, the well-informed and concerned citizens of Hallandale Beach have been talking about this issue for quite some time.

That is, why there's so very little public accountability on behalf of city taxpayers for public funds at Hallandale Beach City Hall, especially when it involves City Hall cronies and people they are used to rewarding for political support, no matter how preposterous the planned use of the funds.
In the case at hand, in the letter at the bottom, that involves among others, Jessica Sanders, the wife of HB Comm. Antony A. Sanders.

That you've seen so little mention of it elsewhere only proves what I and so many others paying attention here have been saying, not only about the state of the South Florida news media in the year 2011, but how utterly delighted Joy Cooper and her Rubber Stamp Crew are that the press is sleeping on the job.
That makes it much easier for them to keep doing what they're doing and avoid detection.

But before I share with you a letter about the nitty-gritty reality of failed policies and wasted tax dollars in this city -Hallandale Beach Weed and Seed- let's look at the fantasy world of HB mayor Joy Cooper as expressed in yesterday's Miami Herald, which carried a Guest Op-Ed from her in her role as head of the Florida League of Cities, just one of the reasons that she is around less-and-less.
Well, besides her home in Colorado.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/06/2052839/we-want-to-work-with-the-governor.html

Miami Herald
February 11, 2011

We want to work with the governor

Florida’s cities wholeheartedly share Gov. Rick Scott’s objective of creating jobs and fostering an economic climate in which employers and families can thrive. Our cities can play a key role in this important mission, and cities stand ready to work shoulder to shoulder with Scott.

City officials want to create a new partnership with state leaders. This is why, as president of the Florida League of Cities, I created the Keys to the Cities Task Force. The task force created Keys to the Cities — a resource to provide additional insight into issues important to Florida’s cities, coming from the perspective of more than 400 communities in which the majority of Floridians live, work, learn, worship and play.

The task force’s document, which can be found at www.floridaleagueofcities.com, has focused on the following areas:

• Improving fiscal accountability and responsibility

• Making government smarter

• Investing in opportunity

• Fiscal responsibility for the future

• Managing and sustaining recovery

We believe that, working with the governor and the Legislature, we can take our state to higher levels of excellence by promoting smart policies that couple spurring growth with respecting the long-term principle of home rule.

Keys to the Cities extends a hand of friendship and cooperation across the levels of government to provide the new administration with a valuable blueprint for building this important relationship to benefit Floridians.

As the government closest to the people, a city has a unique bond with its residents. Each one of Florida’s 410 cities is unique. But no matter their size or scope, all cities have the same goal: to deliver varied, high-quality services in an efficient and responsive manner; enhance residents’ quality of life; and promote education, employment and economic development.

We understand the challenges and opportunities Scott will face. With an eye on building a better and more-prosperous future, the cities look forward to opening a proactive and productive dialogue with state leaders. We stand ready to provide assistance to achieve the overarching goals we share.

Joy Cooper, mayor, Hallandale Beach

-----

Improving fiscal accountability and responsibility?
Really, how about starting in the city where you have been mayor for so long?

How about real tangible consequences for city employees and contractors who DON'T do their job promptly and fail to deliver a dollar's worth of work or service for a dollar's worth of taxpayer's funds?

How about YOU and your Rubber Stamp Crew stop voting to break the city's very own requirements for who can be given CRA grants and loans, especially when they don't meet most of the very low thresholds, not just one?
But no, you and your cohorts prefer to make excuses for why the city's own rules must be continually trampled.
That's YOUR track record, year-after-year.
And where are the positive results?

Which leads me to the letter below that was sent to Hallandale Beach city manager Mark Antonio and stamped January 26th by his office.
It speaks volumes, and it's just the tip of the iceberg of longstanding problems in this city that Cooper and City Hall have ignored, hoping nobody would notice.

In the weeks and months ahead on this blog, since the local media shows no genuine curiosity for stories that once upon a time, real reporters responded to -esp. after you give it to them on a silver platter- you'll see more and more photos and video here of these problems.

My aim is that whenever possible, to work on cutting out the middle-man: the South Florida news media.

----




As always, to keep up with the latest fiasco or spectacle in Hallandale Beach under the Cooper & Antonio regime, go to my friend Michael Butler's blog, Change Hallandale,
http://www.changehallandale.com/

UnsuckDCMetro's post on poor management of D.C.'s Metro system and its parallels to our part of South Florida are hard to miss. Accountability is MIA.

On Monday, UnsuckDCMetro blog had the latest in a series of amazing (and sometimes downright scary) stories about the poor government management, oversight and public outreach being done by WMATA, i.e the Washington Metro, the Washington, DC-based multi-jurisdictional agency that manages and operates the Metro train system that links Washington, D.C. to suburban Virgina and Maryland. http://www.wmata.com/

It's a story that was first picked up by WTOP Radio in Washington, the All-News station, and then picked-up in turn and linked to on The Drudge Report.

http://www.wtop.com/
Listen live at: http://www.wtop.com/?sid=599366&nid=162
The one and only Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/

It lays out for all to see the sort of incredibly irresponsible behavior and CYA attitude of both
both its employees and management and the sort of nonchalance that has plagued WMATA for years, part of the reason, undoubtedly, that UnsuckDCMetro came into existence.

When you're a transportation agency that has recently seen people die, needlessly, it would seem to me that half-assed doesn't really cut it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro

My comments continue after the post:

Monday, January 3, 2011
How 'bout some iPotties Instead?

There was a lot of Metro news over the holidays.

Metro started random bag screening, they paid a communications firm $1.2 million to help market themselves through "guerrilla marketing," they managed to get the government to give them $150 million with no apparent additional oversight, and they doled out cash and iPads to executives on the finance team.

Read the rest of the amazing post at:
http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-bout-some-ipotties-instead.html

Having taken the Metro into downtown D.C. for work for almost 15 years from my home on Capitol Hill, then Tenleytown and finally Arlington County for 13 years, this story is NOT exactly Breaking News, per se, to most observant transit riders standing at underground train stations.
In fact, I think I can pretty well guess where the worst offenses took place.

UnsuckDC Metro http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/, the insightful and observant blog that this story originally appeared in before being picked-up nationally, ran an amazing
story on Dec. 16th that is scary as hell, and will ring familiar to anyone living in South Florida who is observant in the ways that government works -or doesn't.

For those of you living in South Florida who have been following my thoughts in this space for four years, tell me that the actions described in the above post don't sound EXACTLY like the sort of obtuse thinking coming out of Hallandale Beach City Hall for years under the Joy Cooper and Mike Good/Mark Antonio regime, where their primary goal has always been to obfuscate, and to look at everything BUT the real problem here -genuine lack of accountability and ZERO punishment for continual, unsatisfactory performance:

Thursday, December 16, 2010
Mystery Worker Removed Barrier at Tenleytown

So much for taking some time off for the holidays.

On Nov. 16, several Metro riders were greeted with a scary sight at Tenleytown.

As they climbed what appeared to be a run of the mill broken escalator, they arrived near the top to see a gaping hole where some steps were missing because the escalator was under repair.

Read the rest of this jaw-dropping story at:
http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com/2010/12/mystery-worker-removed-barrier-at.html

If you read that post, too, it's hard not to think about all the many, many longstanding issues and problems around HB that have NEVER been 'fixed' or resolved to anyone's satisfaction, least of all, ours, even while city tax money continues to flow out to sleep-walking contractors and city employees, but where are the tangible results?
Where's the accountability?

More proof of THAT lack of accountability to the hard-working citizens of this community comes via an email that soon will be going to two of Tallahassee's newest residents, Rick Scott and Pam Biondi, the new Florida governor and attorney general, both of whom I voted for.

In the weeks and months ahead, they are going to know EXACTLY what has been going on for YEARS in Hallandale Beach, Florida.

How Jennifer Carroll proves the political history of Florida isn't quite what it used to be -and neither are the news media's memories, either

To the blog readers who were kind enough to email me and ask -perhaps tongue in cheek- if I noticed that "Correction" in the Miami Herald on Friday, I did.
Actually, I noticed the mistake in the original article on Thursday, below.

-----
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/09/02/1803901/scotts-likely-no-2-navy-vet.html

Miami Herald
Rick Scott's likely No. 2: Navy vet
A Republican victory in November in the governor's race could produce Florida's first black lieutenant governor. Jennifer Carroll is likely to be Rick Scott's running mate

By Steve Bousquet, Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

September 2, 2010

Rick Scott's running mate on the Republican ticket for governor is expected to be state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, a U.S. Navy veteran and mother of three who, if elected, would be Florida's first black lieutenant governor.

Scott will unveil his pick Thursday in a campaign fly-around beginning in Jacksonville, a major hub of Republican voters near Carroll's home in Fleming Island.

In choosing Carroll, Scott, himself a Navy veteran, would get a woman with a distinctive personal story who could neutralize the gender appeal of his Democratic opponent, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink:

• In a state where one in every seven voters is black -- and nearly all are Democrats -- Carroll is a black Republican.

• As a native of Trinidad, Carroll is an immigrant who could help soften Scott's hard-line image on an issue that cuts both ways in a state with a large immigrant population.

• She packs a celebrity punch: Her son, Nolan II, is a rookie cornerback and kick returner for the Miami Dolphins, drafted out of the University of Maryland.

"She's an immigrant and she worked her way up and she did everything through hard work. That's very similar to Rick's background. There's a lot of similarities between the two of them,'' said Jen Baker, Scott's campaign spokesman.

Carroll, 51, made Gov. Charlie Crist's short list of possible running mates in 2006, and she was among those listed as possible successors to Mel Martinez, who resigned his U.S. Senate seat last year.

Scott's camp is aggressive in challenging what it considers off-base speculation on political blogs. When blogs named Carroll as his pick Wednesday, the campaign raised no objection.

Lieutenant governors in Florida share one common trait: obscurity. The office did not exist before 1968 and it is unique in that no job description for it exists in state law.

Strategists agree that the selection of a running mate is largely a media fixation that matters little to rank-and-file voters, unless the choice backfires.

"The first rule of a lieutenant governor candidate is to not get in trouble,'' said GOP strategist and lobbyist J.M. ``Mac'' Stipanovich. "As a candidate for governor your choice of a lieutenant governor does little for you, but this one is intriguing.''

'A GREAT MESH'

Leslie Dougher, county GOP chairwoman in Carroll's home of Clay County, praised the choice as "far-reaching.''

"It would be a great mesh,'' Dougher said. "Mr. Scott is from South Florida and Jennifer is from North Florida.''

Sink's running mate is Rod Smith, 60, a former state senator and elected state attorney from Alachua County who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006.

"I don't have time to speculate, really,'' Sink said in Miami Wednesday. ``I'm just waiting to see what his announcement is.''

BACKGROUND

Carroll moved to Florida in 1986. She and her husband, Nolan, have three children.

She became the first black Republican woman elected to the Legislature in a special election in 2003.

She retired after 20 years in the Navy, where she rose to the rank of lieutenant commander aviation maintenance officer.

She has a bachelor's degree from the University of New Mexico and a master's degree in business administration from St. Leo University in Pasco County.

Her official legislative biography notes that she is a life member of both the NAACP and the National Rifle Association.

Her record is not free of blemishes, however.

Six years ago, after news reports that she listed a degree from an online ``diploma mill,'' Kensington University in California, she dropped the reference from her official resume.

"This causes me great concern,'' Carroll told the Florida Times-Union in 2004. ``It's a lot of time, effort and money poured into a university I thought was a viable program.''

Last spring, Carroll filed a bill regulating certain electronic sweepstakes games. The Times-Union reported that Carroll confirmed that her public relations firm, 3 N. and J.C. Corp., represented Allied Veterans of the World Inc., a veterans' group that sought to legalize the slot-like machines.

Carroll quickly withdrew the bill (HB 1185) and said a staff member filed the legislation without her approval.

Carroll does not have a distinguished record as a lawmaker, but has compiled a solidly pro-business voting record and was unchallenged in a bid for a fourth term this fall.

At a campaign stop in Jacksonville on Tuesday, Scott told WOKV radio he had ``pretty much'' made up his mind but would not stoke speculation about his choice.

"This person's going to do a wonderful job,'' Scott said. ``Whoever it's going to be, you guys will all be proud of.''

Carroll would not be the first black woman to run for the state's No. 2 post.

In 1978, Claude Kirk, a former Republican governor seeking a comeback as a Democrat, chose Mary Singleton as his running mate, but the Kirk-Singleton ticket fared poorly.

Times/Herald staff writer John Frank and Miami Herald staff writer Beth Reinhard contributed to this report.

-----

The case of the missing adjective.

excerpted from:
Miami Herald
Corrections

September 3, 2010

In a story Thursday on Page 1B about Republican Rick Scott's selection of Jennifer Carroll as his running mate, it incorrectly noted that she was the first black female elected to the state Legislature.
Gwen Sawyer Cherry, a Democrat from Miami, was the first African American woman ever to serve in the Legislature. She was elected in 1970.

-----

Carroll is the first Black female Republican elected to the State House, which is why I highlighted Republican in red in the original since it wasn't there, but added online after the edition went to print.

Hmm-m-m... Gwen Cherry was also the first Black woman to practice law in Dade County, a not insignificant fact. See: http://www.gscbwla.org/cherry.htm

Obviously, I'm long past believing that all the employee cuts at the Herald are starting to have their logical negative results for their dwindling number of readers, in that they have lost people who actually know which facts are important and which are not, and can say something
when words in an article are flat-out wrong -or missing.

It will come as no surprise to most of you readers who come here often that in my opinion, the reporters in this community who don't know anything about the political history of this area or why things are the way they are, greatly out-number the ones who do.

This Thursday article is a preview of the future of South Florida media, something I notice nearly every time Miami TV reporters show up at Hollywood City Commission meetings and seem to know nothing -or next-to-nothing- about what is on the meeting agenda and what its implications might be.
So many are strangely incurious.

I don't expect them to be experts, but... well, let's just say that the amount of time some of them need to be talked to by the city's official spokesperson Raelin Story -who is always professional and accommodating- seems to be increasing, based on what I observe.
I'm sure she notices who does their homework and is prepared, and who doesn't and isn't.
I know I do.


Jennifer Carroll's web page at the Florida House of Representatives website:
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/SEctions/Representatives/details.aspx?MemberId=4331&SessionId=42

Campaign website: http://www.scottcarrollforflorida.com/

For more on her talented son...

Miami Herald

DOLPHINS
CB Carroll embraces discipline

By David J. Neal

May 5, 2010

Here's how you know Dolphins rookie cornerback Nolan Carroll didn't grow up acting foolish, or at least didn't do so twice: he's the son of a former Navy lieutenant commander who retired after 20 years with some medals, including an "expert pistol medal."

And that was Mom, state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, the first female black Republican state representative. Dad, Nolan Carroll Sr., was an Air Force senior master sergeant.

"Ever since I came out of my mom, it was, 'yes, sir,' 'no, sir,' 'yes, ma'am,' be on time, do this, do that when I say so," said Carroll, a fifth-round draft pick. "Up to now, and I'm 23 years old, I still say, 'yes, sir,' 'no, sir.' They expect me to say it. There was very strict discipline in my house. They were also cool. They weren't always telling me what to do. They treated me like I was a grown man, as well.'

Now, Carroll is a grown man out of the Jacksonville area with an exemplary off-the-field makeup. If not for the broken leg that aborted Carroll's senior season at Maryland after two games, NFL coaches wouldn't have been in favor of drafting him, but rather adopting him.

"When you talk with the young man, he's just an impressive guy; he really is," Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said. "The first time I ever met him, I was really impressed with the way he came off. Never mind how he presented himself from a football standpoint, but he had all the other things that are important to us, too."

Such as a willingness to do exactly what he is told.

"The coaches are like my parents," Carroll said. "Same thing. I do what they tell me to do. I don't back talk."

And if he disagrees with a coaching decree?

"I look down and think, 'They know what's best for me, so I'm just going to listen to what they tell me to do,' " he said.

That's one reason Carroll tries to avoid even minor violations such as breaking curfew -- he figures rules were made for a reason. Also, he's used to being in situations where any bad behavior can reflect on others.

"If my friends wanted to go and do something and I thought it was bad, I wouldn't do it," he said. "I'd stay in the house just to make sure. I didn't want to give [his mother] a bad name.

"Same with this," he continued, looking past reporters to the Dolphins' logo facing the Davie practice fields. "I treat this like a family. I treat the Miami Dolphins like it's my mom, it's my family. I don't ever want to give them a bad name."

Now, if he can play nickel cornerback without embarrassing them on the field, he might have a job.

The Dolphins believe they have found their future outside cornerbacks in 2009 rookies Sean Smith and Vontae Davis. Will Allen, who turns 32 in August with nine seasons of mileage, will be back in that competition for starting spots this year after recovering from a season-ending knee injury. But for how long? Also, the Dolphins released last year's nickel cornerback, Nate Jones.

With three-wide receiver sets becoming the norm, it's a position defenses want settled.

"One of the things that I think I want to try to do with Nolan right away is to just get him in a position where he's going to be able to get himself settled down and play because he has missed so much time," Sparano said. "I think that we are going to kind of let him get his feet set at corner right now and then take a look at some of the players that we have in there and then worry about whether we get him inside."

Carroll, who ran a 4.42-second 40-yard dash at Maryland's pro day, played against slot receivers during his sophomore season in 2007. That was his first at cornerback after spending his freshman year as a wide receiver.

"[The Dolphins] like that I'm tough and aggressive," Carroll said "I need to work just getting used to the position some more. I've only been playing it a year and a half if you don't count my senior year that I missed."

While Florida gubernatorial candidates talk about re-inventing the wheel, Meg Whitman says innovation, technology will be key to California's success

Meg Whitman 2010 campaign video: Meg Whitman says innovation, technology will be key to California's success  http://youtu.be/S34aTv7wNdY

Now THIS is how you make a political video that appeals to the common sense of intelligent and well-informed people who always vote: you're honest about the current economic reality and describe a plausible scenario for changing things for the better, not spouting condescending nonsensical generalities about how the economic future of the state is sunshine.
Please!

The contrast in intellectual heft and strategic focus between this Meg Whitman video and the dim-witted TV political ads and website videos coming out of Florida could hardly be greater, and from a Florida voter's perspective, hardly more dispiriting.
I last wrote about the contrast between the gubernatorial candidates in Florida and California on July 25th:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/with-99-days-til-election-day-politico.html

I've got some blog posts coming up soon about the alternative energy approaches of Alex Sink, Bill McCullom and Rick Scott, and to say that they are vague and unfocused is a gross understatement.
Even worse from my perspective, Sink's approach, as distilled from reading her own website and several environmental websites and blogs, seems to unduly rely on Washington largess, which is to say that she thinks that D.C. will simply give money to Florida so that pols in Tallahassee can pick-and-choose some economic winners in the alternative energy industry.

I'm going to go out on a limb(!) and say that kind of politics-as-usual approach would enrich friends, family members, past supporters and cronies of the elites in Tallahassee, but NOT the entrepreneur in South Florida that has an innovative business plan that satisfies consumers and will make money within three years, and won't be dependent on government subsidies for its sheer existence.

That's not a constructive strategy to create well-paying jobs and a viable industry, esp. in South Florida, but is sweet music to lobbyists, who will once again say that local and county govts. need them to do their magic in Washington, with taxpayers footing the tab.

We don't need more taxpayer-funded lobbyists in Washington, we need more high-tech jobs in Florida that are based on the free market system of providing a desired service to consumers at a price they deem reasonable enough to use.

If you doubt what I'm saying about the contrast in quality of the candidates for governor between California and the three currently running in Florida, simply go to Whitman's campaign sites for yourself and see what's there. They are well-designed, easy to navigate and full of useful information presented in an attractive manner that isn't a confusing mishmash of images.

Which is to say, that her sites are the exact opposite of the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel's websites, which are uninviting jumbled messes that seem to have no logical rhyme or reason other than to send you involuntarily to one of their sponsors.

Meg Whitman's got a damn impressive resume that's based on integrating innovative ideas and the ability to give consumers a product they find useful; has the right kind of personal temperament to handle the ups-and-downs of the office she's seeking; and has the demonstrated ability to create enthusiasm among others for her ideas and policies. Plus, quite clearly, she has some very smart and creative people around her to advise her, not the usual political retreads.

Your homework assignment is to compare and contrast Whitman with candidates from Florida.

Official Meg Whitman campaign website:
http://www.megwhitman.com/index.php
Meg Whitman campaign YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Meg2010Campaign

With 99 days 'til Election Day, POLITICO reports that cynical Obama Nation is sending flacks to FL to help bumbling Alex Sink make hay out of BP spill

Surprise! With 99 days 'til Election Day, The POLITICO is reporting Sunday that the cynical and craven Obama White House is sending flacks and hacks to FL to help bumbling, stumbling Alex Sink and her gubernatorial campaign make political hay out of BP oil spill.

Great, I'm sure that's exactly who respected and well-read Florida reporters and columnists like Steve Bousquet, Adam Smith, William March, Aaron Deslatte, Craig Pittman, Bill Cotterell, Jeremy Wallace and Dara Kam want to hear from about the Florida political campaigns: people who don't live here and who only know what's going on based on what they see and hear on TV, newspapers and blogs.

The POLITICO
W.H. sends 2012 rescue team to Fla.
By: Carol E. Lee
July 25, 2010 07:02 AM EDT

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The White House has quietly launched an effort to confront the political backlash along the Gulf Coast over its handling of the BP oil spill – giving special attention to Florida, the only state in the region President Barack Obama won in 2008 and one he will need again when he runs for re-election in 2012.

The White House dispatched political and communications aides to the Gulf Coast states on July 12, with Alabama and Mississippi each receiving one, sources familiar with the effort said. Some aides went to Louisiana. Florida received four. Read the rest of the article at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40184.html This article also has this delicious pot-meets-kettle quote:

“It was just so off-target and out of touch with the reality of what’s going on over there,” Sink said in an interview at the Florida Democratic Party headquarters in Tallahassee.

Actually, being off-target and out-of-touch is the common talking point among Florida voters, Democratic and Republican, in describing Alex Sink's dismal gubernatorial campaign to date.

Savvy but honest and well-informed Republicans I've talked to from around the state are almost as confounded -but more delighted!- by her repeated failure to launch as the Democratic activist community, who, rather foolishly, have deluded themselves into imagining that that Sink would be a strong, poised and polished can-do candidate like Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who is running to be governor of California, and whom most of my friends in Cali are currently supporting. http://www.megwhitman.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VekQ1F9J-C8



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShZEPayRDA8


And that's Meg Whitman, by the way, NOT Mae Whitman, as some news articles with bad editing have written that Mae would be a great candidate! LOL!
Mae is the very talented twenty-two year old American actress who has, literally, grown-up before our eyes in one good film or TV show after another, as the daughter of, among others, Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and Bill Pullman.
She's currently appearing in NBC's Parenthood, which as I've written here previously, is a TV show that started-off far too slowly for me, due to the need to establish all the character's story arcs -and there were SO many characters!

But after the first 6-8 slow-moving episodes, the show's finally picked-up some momentum and has gotten dramatically better, with some compelling story lines that seem realistic to me. Especially the tension between high school cousins, Mae's 'wild child' character Amber and 'good girl' Haddie, played by Sarah Ramos, who was so tremendous as the youngest daughter in another fave of mine that got cancelled far too soon, American Dreams.I would watch either one of them in anything because there's never a false note when they're on the screen.

That seething hurtful anger on the surface that Haddie had towards Amber at the end of the first season was SO realistic, that when they finally had to reconcile, because they were always going to be connected, it was almost awkward to watch.It deeply resonated with me from my experience of being in the middle of watching female friends get into it with other female relatives about old slights, both real and imagined.

Result: Me driving us back home to D.C. area on the Sunday after Thanksgiving at her family's home, and hours-and-hours of quiet punctuated by bouts of crying over in the passenger seat. Talk about a no-win situation.
It also helps greatly that the show also stars another longtime personal favorite, Lauren Graham, as Mae's mother. Mama Mia!
http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/bios/lauren-graham/index.shtml
Here's a short NBC video that features Lauren and Mae:
http://www.nbc.com/parenthood/bios/mae-whitman/index.shtml

See also http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0926165/ and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tow-ovrl2_U



Experience and the realities of the campaign have clearly proven that Sink is anything but a Meg Whitman.

If anything, she's more like a Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, but without either the royal Kennedy magic and name recognition.

Whatever else the many faults and weaknesses of GOP candidates Rick Scott and State Attorney General Bill McCollum may be, and there are plenty of self-evident ones to choose from, Alex Sink has proven that she is Not Ready for Prime Time.

Sorry, when you are governor of the fourth-largest state in the country, you have to have gravitas, and even though Charlie Crist has proven to be such a colossal disappointment and waste of a vote, doesn't mean we have to accept such a low threshold.

(Gravitas, yet another reason why I will vote enthusiastically for Marco Rubio in November, despite disagreements on some policy issues.
I know with certainty he's loyal to the Framer's intentions, smart-as-a-whip, hard-working and really sweats the details, some traits that CAN'T honestly be said for the other three candidates hoping to go to D.C. this Fall.)

And when you think about it, how could it be otherwise for Sink, when even now, with less than four months to go until November 2nd, both the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald are STILL mentioning in the first few paragraphs of their news coverage of her campaign the fact that a large portion of Florida voters not only don't know who she is, but, even more tellingly about her failure to make herself known and give a logical rationale for her candidacy, DON'T even know that she is a SHE.
Let me repeat that: DON'T even know that she is a SHE.
Yes, that's a real identity problem that even wheelbarrows of money and TV campaign ads can't undo the damage of.
Frankly, if Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene was smart, he'd have actually run for governor, as he'd have carved-up Alex Sink even more methodically and brutally than Scott or McCollum plan to do, and would have a better chance of actually improving the state for the better, especially since the Dems in Tallahassee now may be among the dumbest and least-accomplished in generations.
And not that you asked, but since I last mentioned it, I have received more emails from folks throughout the state saying that they agree with the well-founded rumor that State Rep. Joe Gibbons, who is supposed to represent me and other HB residents, as well as those from here westward in Broward County towards Miramar, actually lives in Jacksonville with his family when he is not at work in Tallahassee, NOT South Florida.

Sort of like a less geographically-challenging version of the problem Steve Geller confronts now living apart from his family in Cooper City, and hanging his lawyer/lobbyist hat in Hollywood Beach at night in order to meet the legal residency requirements of his battle against incumbent District 6 Broward County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger.