Tampa in August.  It's swell if you like 90-degree, 90-percent-humidity days with an almost 100% chance of thunderstorms, plus smack dab in the middle of hurricane season.

I guarantee you a side story in Tampa 2012 will be the number of convention delegates passing out.  Unless there's a hurricane.  Then there'll be no side stories.  The choice of a convention city is not a slam-dunk winning situation.  You can get burned badly by negative publicity if the choice is wrong, which I suspect is quite possible in Tampa.  Imagine the pictures of the septuagenarian delegates on stretchers in the hospitals with heat stroke.  The usual second-guessing ("What were they thinking?") will set in.

What you want in a convention city is lots of hotel rooms and good mass transit, especially for the Democrats, who have twice the number of delegates than the Republicans.  Cleveland is probably better than Charlotte, and Charlotte Augusts can get pretty hot (as can Cleveland, but less probable continuous heat).  Sad to say, but the usual suspects (New York, San Francisco, Chicago) are the logistical best choices.

Rubio of course will consolidate a lot of the Angry Mob (most but not all Republicans, and the remaining Dixiecrats).  Crist will suffer because, why bother voting for a soft Republican when you can vote for a real Democrat, Kendrick Meek?

The entry of Greene on the last day of filing will not endear him to any of the Democratic Party establishment, but with his money, I doubt he cares about that.  But where does he position himself?  Likely to the right of Meek.  But to try for the nomination in August, that is a difficult line to walk - Florida has a "closed primary" system, and in an off year, only activists are going to be slogging to the sweaty polls (a 15% turnout would be typical, and that's where Kendrick's ground game and year-plus of contacts getting ballot access petitions signed are going to help him).  Greene is going to have to convince Democrats that he would be the best one to fight Mitch McConnell, plus I'm sure President Obama will be indirectly indicating support for Meek all along.

For the General Election, a big wild card is whether the RPOF (Republican Party of Florida) credit card scandal balloons and indictments are issued (particularly Income Tax evasion).  Both Rubio and Crist are vulnerable, but Rubio more so. Crist displayed horrible judgment in elevating Jim Greer to Party Chair, but Rubio actually has his paw prints all over big charges for lavish items.

Filing deadline is April 30, hence all the flurry about Crist, as he has to decide quickly.  Primary is in August.

I live in the Orlando area.  The August-September weather is, in a word, hot.  In two words: hot, humid.  Chance of afternoon thunderstorms near 100%.  Hurricanes are a possibility - the peak of the season is early September.

I'd love the attention a national political convention would bring to Florida.  Only they need to schedule it in November-December-January for best probability of good weather.  And come to think of it, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in early January is pretty stupid as well.  Hell, move the Election Day to July 4 and all this stuff starts making sense.

Charlie Crist will have the machine running for his re-election in 2010, and that will help whatever Republican comes out of the (likely) crowded primary (my guess is A.G. Bill McCollum, he's a slightly loony angry white guy, the Repub's kind of candidate).

Sadly, it looks likely this seat stays red.

Every Democrat that seems possible (Meek, Kathy Castor, Bob Wexler, Dan Gelber, etc.) all have local constituencies, and FL is such a big state that you really need big bucks to run for Senate or Governor (or even Cabinet positions).  Sink is the only potential candidate with statewide recognition, and she would have been formidable.  Alas.

Nate Silver says so.  By 27 votes.  The spirits must obey!

Charlie Crist cares about Charlie Crist's political career, period. This is for sure.  But Crist is a very smart cookie.  He sees better than almost all Republicans that the current and recent past behavior of his party is driving it off a cliff, and is thinking about five chess moves ahead.  He wants to win re-election in 2010 by a huge margin, to set him up for the presidential nomination in 2012.  He wants to blunt Democratic enthusiasm in Florida.  So he signs laws restoring felons voting rights, brings uniform paper ballots statewide, and now he extends voting hours.  How much do these gestures cost?  Very little.  How much goodwill does he earn?  Plenty.

he also funded the Swift Boat Veterans back in 2004.  Be careful when associating with this guy.

If and when Pickens admits publicly that he himself is complicit in propagating the policies that led us to the point of crisis, then maybe he can be listened to with some credence given, but not now.

Where is the talk about understanding the needs of the working mother, the guy in Scranton who's lost his health insurance, the workers in Cleveland who just got told the plant is shutting down, the millions of everyday Americans who are one missed paycheck or one illness away from losing their homes?

"This election is not about me.  It's about you."

McCain's tour of the Emergency Center diverted some attention and resources of the Center at a time when, if they are doing their jobs properly, they would be very busy with pre-positioning supplies and work crews.

On Wednesday morning (the day after his speech at the Convention), Schweitzer visited the breakfast meeting of the Florida Delegation and blew us away.

http://seminoledemocrats.com/index.php?p age=blog&full=106

"If you hear someone trash talking our ticket, you go right on up to them, look 'em straight in the eye, and say 'Let's settle this outside, buddy!'"

"How dare the Republicans call themselves the party of values when their policies tear children from their mothers and fathers, put people into poverty, and deny them the very minimum of health care?  How dare they!"

The consensus of everyone I spoke to was that Schweitzer was a "up-and-comer".  He talks and behaves like blue collar America - male blue collar America - and takes the argument head-on that the Democratic Party can represent not only the interests but also the values and character of the disaffected white males.  He is really a nightmare for Republicans because if they lose the white guys, they're sunk.

I'm not sure that Wexler could not win against Martinez.

Statewide, Florida Democrats are at a serious disadvantage, with only Bill Nelson and Alex Sink holding statewide offices.  But Martinez is a unique case, he's not a generic Republican that can re-image himself for a General Election.  Martinez has serious baggage.

Of course Martinez will try and demonize Wexler, but he'll do that against whoever his challenger is.  The question is, after two years of an Obama Administration, will voters begin to see the practical difference that competent government makes in their lives?  If President Obama campaigns with the Florida Senatorial and Gubernatorial challengers and puts some capital on the line, it's possible for 2010 to be a breakout election here, just in time for the redistricting.

We very old people will see similarity with the Imperial Japanese flag of WWII.  I'll bet the folks who designed the sign are under 40.

nevadadem is right in sensing that proportional allocation would be a disaster for us in NY, CA, and others.

Florida is plurality Democratic, but with a big unaffiliated and third party bloc.  And it is horrifically gerrymandered favoring the Republicans.

If we used a Congressional District model to apportion Electors here, there would be almost no point in voting, the districts are so skewed.  You could just count the Congressional delegation and allocate by their numbers, in which Dems are at a huge and totally unrepresentative disadvantage.