The Fine Print

The Crist-Rubio drinking game

It's almost a shame that the Fox News debate between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio is scheduled to air at 9 a.m. on Sunday.

It would have been much better if this debate has been set during prime-time, or least in the early evening hours. Because then viewers could play the Crist-Rubio drinking game where they could take a drink every time certain words are said.

That's because according to Chris Wallace "there will be no rules...we'll have everything but the steel cage."

So that means we can expect to hear the following words a lot:

"Lobbyist."

"Obama."

"Stimulus."

"Unemployment."

"Credit card bills."

"Character."

Others that may get slipped in there could be "man hug" and "lavish lifestyle." We might also hear a bit of a dust-up over taxes, as in who voted for them, who didn't. Was that $1 a pack a cigarette tax hike signed by Crist really a tax hike? How can Rubio say he didn't support a tax hike when he voted for budgets where the state relied on increased property taxes to pay for schools?

You get the picture.

Those are the narratives that the two campaigns are now relying heavily on. It will be interesting to see whether or not the debate does delve into other substantive areas including Cuba, the nation's relationship with Israel, financial regulation, and immigration reform. You could include health care, but there the argument is over whether Crist was forceful enough in saying he opposed federal health care reform. Both men are now saying they support the lawsuit filed by Attorney General Bill McCollum to try to block it.

Perhaps the correct question should be "Is there anything in the federal health care reform bill you could support?"

A handful of other potential questions could be:

Should Congress pass an extension of the higher matching rate for Medicaid? Gov. Crist has included it in his budget, and now has the Florida Senate.

Could you explain exactly what type of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico you do support? Should it be allowed in state waters, should it be limited to federal waters, is there a limit to how close it should be to the shores of the state?

Given that Florida has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation, should the federal government do anything more to help homeowners? What do you think about the latest plan announced this past week by President Obama?

Secession, robocalls, freedom: Day 1 after health care reform

Within 24 hours of health care reform passing in Washington D.C., we had here in Florida:

Attorney General Bill McCollum, the leading Republican candidate for governor, declare that he would file a lawsuit with nine other states as soon as Tuesday and that his decision had nothing to do with any political ambitions or attempts to place conservative critics of health care reform.

"No politics involved in this whatsover,'' said McCollum during a press conference held on Monday morning. It is all about the fact that the bill is bad and unconstitutional, he said.

About six hours later, McCollum's campaign sent out a press release attacking Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink that stated "while she provides lip service on addressing the serious challenges facing our state, Alex Sink refuses to stand with the small businessmen and small businesswomen who will be harmed by the higher taxes and government mandates this legislation will bring."

The release further states: "Fortunately, Attorney Bill McCollum is leading the charge to challenge the Democrats’ unconstitutional health care plan – showing the true leadership we need for Florida’s future.”

The attack on Sink came because after months and months of refusing to say whether or not she supported Obamacare she finally put out a statement that said she was in favor of the bill headed to the president, sort of.

"Though it is certainly not perfect, these long-overdue reforms are better than Washington continuing to do nothing to improve America's health care system.'' said Sink, the main Democratic rival to McCollum for governor.

While Sink and McCollum weighed in, the Florida Legislature jumped right into the fray as well, passing not one, but two bills out of legislative committees. One bill urges McCollum to sue, while the other would put a constitutional amendment on the 2010 ballot that would say Floridians are not obligated to follow any mandates to participate in any health care systems.

"It is our duty to step up and reassert the rights of Floridians, in this case protecting our citizen’s rights and freedoms to make appropriate decisions as it relates to their own health care,”said Rep. Scott Plakon.

State House Democrats, in a bit of clever wordplay, announced that now was not the time to "secede" and that Republicans were having an outrageous display of partisanship and ignoring the fact that nearly 25 percent of adult Floridians were uninsured.

Former House Speaker Marco Rubio said he would launch a petition to repeal health care reform and chided his U.S. Senate rival Gov. Charlie Crist for not being strong enough on the issue. Crist's campaign pointed that he did in fact support repealing the measure. And if that wasn't enough, there was the release from the Rubio campaign that stated the road to health care reform started with the "Crist-Obama stimulus."

Lastly, the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd did robocalls to voters in the 2nd Congressional District trying to explain why he changed his vote from a no to a yes on health care reform.

His call touted the legislation as a way to stand up to insurance companies, while offering a tax credit to middle class families and help out with the deficit.

"For too long insurance companies have had too much power to determine patient coverage and care, premiums are out of control, and health care costs threaten our nation's fiscal future,'' Boyd declared in the phone call.

Health care reform he promised would "put a stop to insurance companies who deny care or cancel coverage when you get sick care."

He added that "I'm confident that with these reforms we will begin to control health care costs for our families and our country, reserve the right to choose your doctor and stop many of the abuses of the big insurance companies."

Sink and McCollum by the social media numbers

As noted in a previous post, there is a bit of speculation going on about how important using social media and new media methods will matter in the 2010 elections.

The use of new media gave President Barack Obama an effective tool during the 2008 elections.

So by the numbers, how is it going in the Florida governor's race?

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has more than 9,500 Facebook fans and has more than 2,800 followers on Twitter. She has posted six videos to her YouTube channel over the last 10 months, including a sarcastic one that was done by having a Sink staffer videotape McCollum while talking to reporters.

Attorney General Bill McCollum by contrast has 3,660 Facebook fans and more than 3,000 followers on Twitter. He has six videos on his YouTube channel.

It's worth noting, however, that McCollum has been much more prolific on Twitter. He has posted nearly 270 tweets to Sink's 63 tweets.

What matters more - media or the message?

A scholarly political science journal concluded way, way back in 2008 that effective campaigns could find a successful strategy by going after not just the motivated supervoters, but by also targeting those who don't normally vote in every election.

A quartet of political science professors writing in the March 2008 issue of Political Behavior said that "we conclude that even in high-profile, high dollar races the most important determinant of voter turnout is voter history, but that holding this variable constant reveals a positive effect for campaign communication among "seldom voters," registered but rarely active participants who-ironically- are less likely than regular or intermittent voters to receive such communication.

"In fact, we find that those with the least active political pasts are the most likely to feel the positive effects of campaign communication,'' the article written by Professors Janine Parry, Jay Barth, Martha Kropf and E. Terrence Jones.

Put simply: It helps to reach out to voters who aren't used to the attention.

There is ample evidence that this theory played itself out in the 2008 presidential campaign especially among the campaign team of Barack Obama as it utilized everything from text messages to social media to raise large amounts of money and to motivate voters, including some of those "seldom voters" like young people and African-Americans.

The Obama strategy has been followed to some extent, according to a November 2009 Wall Street Journal article written by Peter Wallsten, by Republican gubernatorial candidates who won elections last fall.

Steve Schale, the Florida state director for the Obama campaign, said that "we used every tool that was available" including even using ads on Internet videogames as a way to target college students.

But Schale said in the end he still thinks that what social media and the Internet did was make it easier to motivate people to help out the campaigns, citing for instance a program used by the campaign that would encourage volunteers to go and physically contact voters in their own neighborhoods.

"You utilize them to do the things that traditionally win campaigns,'' said Schale, adding that "banging on someone's door" can be just as effective as a candidate appearing on television. Schale adds that it also helps to have people enthused about the candidate they are working for.

Flash forward then to this year.

If you look at the numbers, former House Speaker Marco Rubio is winning the new media war so far in the U.S. Senate race.

Rubio - who has surged past Gov. Charlie Crist in the polls for the U.S. Senate - has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter and has more than 36,000 fans on his Facebook page. Rubio has posted more than 110 videos on his YouTube page, with some videos getting more than 43,000 views.

Crist by contrast has 4,559 followers on Twitter and 9,203 fans on his Facebook page. His campaign has posted 35 videos on YouTube, with no video even getting 600 views.

But Schale is one person who doesn't think that Rubio's success is just about his utilization of media.

He contends that Rubio is succeeding because he has plugged into a frustration among conservative voters and used it against Crist.

"It's not a field of dreams and build it and they will come,'' said Schale. "If you put the Yankees on the field you are going to have a good team."

Schale adds: "I don't think we have gotten to the point where you can create that kind of movement from social media out of whole cloth."

There are those, of course, who disagree to some extent with Schale. But if Rubio wins in the primary against Crist it will be interesting to see if it is the media or the message that gets the credit.

House could scuttle a Jeb Bush legacy

A key component of Gov. Jeb Bush’s One Florida Initiative could be eliminated under a proposal that has been suggested by a House budget panel. But the move is already drawing fire from some legislators and the NAACP.

Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla and chairman of the House budget committee that wants to eliminate the Office of Supplier Diversity and hand over some of its work to another part of state government, says that the current office isn't doing it's job.

 He cites a decline in minority spending levels in state government over the last few years. The office was set up by Bush at the time he ended the use of racial preferences in state contracts.

Bush, while not commenting directly about the cut, told the Florida Tribune that "supplier diversity takes work."

Read more about this and some other state budget-related news here.

A lesson in how things really work in Tallahassee.

It took Peggy Lee six hours to drive from her home to Englewood to testify before the Florida Legislature about the need to provide more money to 911 systems.

But Lee -- the mother-in-law of murder victim Denise Lee -- learned in a matter of minutes how things really work in Tallahassee.

 

Lee got roughly 1 minute to talk to legislators on Wednesday. Lobbyists for and against a proposed bill on 911 funding got anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes.

 

Roughly 30 seconds after Lee spoke, a House committee delayed action on the bill she testified on. A move was made to bring the bill back up later, but there was confusion over House rules, ultimately leading to a decision to shut the meeting down.

 

"We just feel very frustrated," Lee said. "I guess that's just how it works."

 

Read more here at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

JD: I was wrong

Sen. JD Alexander, R-Lake Wales, said that he no longer thinks that Florida’s insurance commissioner should be an appointed official.

Alexander, who has a series of gripes about current Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty, made his comments following a contentious debate over whether the commissioner should be subject to a confirmation vote every 2 years. The bill, SB 740, barely squeezed out of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee by a 5-3 vote on Wednesday.

Alexander was one of the main architects of a bill in 2002 that changed the commissioner from an elected official, but he said that it was an “error” because he contended that McCarty “was more of a politician” than a professional regulator. McCarty has come under fire from some legislators for his handling of rate cases involving State Farm Florida and his opposition to a bill that would deregulate the industry.

Legislators got rid of an elected commissioner eight years ago because they did not want the newly created Chief Financial Officer position to have complete control over insurance. At the time the leading contender for the job was Tom Gallagher, who was eventually elected to the post.

“I am big enough to admit that I was wrong,’’ said Alexander.

More here from the Best of the Florida Current for March 17.

The knives are out in Tallahassee

Despite the state’s own budget mess and a record unemployment rate, lawmakers in Tallahassee on Tuesday are expected to debate whether or not Congress should be forced to balance the federal budget.

It’s just one clear sign that election year politics has become the driving force of a session where there's no money and there is a need to resonate with voters.

“We’re entering a harder partisan season than usual,’’ said Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican campaign consultant.  “It’s important, I think, because it represents the end of the era where everyone could get a slice of an ever-growing pie. Sure, the GOP got a bigger slice, but the Democrats got their stuff too…but now there’s no money to play with. The fun years are over, and the knives are out.’’

More here at the Florida Tribune.

Rubio was not alone in having expenses picked up by political committee

There is a report on Saturday that goes into great detail about how former House Speaker Marco Rubio used political committees to "spend big money with little scrutiny."

The Times/Herald went into great detail about Rubio's use of two committees of continuous existence and noted that a lot of money was spent on expenses but not political contributions like committees set up by other legislators. The story also notes that a great deal of money went for unidentified credit card expenses.

But while Rubio's use of CCE money may have been out of scale compared to other legislators, he is hardly alone in having expenses picked up by CCE's nor is this the first time his use of CCE has been noted.

A 2003 story in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune found that more than $2.8 million had flowed into those accounts over a four-year period from special interest donors and the money being used for campaign contributions and to "reimburse expenses largely incurred by legislators themselves."

The story noted how money was used for dry-cleaning bills, trips to Sam's and Costco, oil changes and how an account controlled by House Speaker Johnnie Byrd spent money on "literature/periodicals" and "office equipment."

One lawmaker even used his CCE to pay rent for his home in Tallahassee.

That story also disclosed that at the time some lawmakers - including Rubio - failed to follow IRS regulations and reveal information about donors in federal filings. State law back in 2003 allowed the names of some CCE donors to be kept secret in state filings.

A March 7, 2004 story in The Miami Herald detailed how Rubio spent $6,665 "none of it out of his own pocket" to charter a plane so he could make a meeting in Tampa to try to nail down his bid for speakership.

A February 2007 story in The Miami Herald reported that a CCE controlled by Sen. Mike Fasano had reimbursed him thousands of dollars in expenses including $550 for a tab for a meeting held at a steakhouse at the Saddlebrook Resort north of Tampa.

This 2009 story from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune pointed that lawmakers were still using CCE's for various expenses. Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, for example was reimbursed nearly $25,000 for travel expenses over a two and a half year period. Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, has also said travel expenses picked up. Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, had hotel rooms, taxi rides and airplane rides paid for out of CCE.

That same story also pointed out the Florida Hispanic Legislative Caucus - of which Rubio was a member - used money it got from contributions on various expenses. The caucus, for example, spent nearly $1,900 dollars on meals from three Tallahassee restaurants on the last day of the 2008 session where Rubio was speaker.

Private school voucher bill comes with expensive price tag

 As published first in the Current by the Florida Tribune:

A private school voucher bill being pushed by top Republicans in the House and Senate could have a huge financial impact unless changes are made to the legislation.

Initial fiscal estimates showed that HB 1009 and SB 2126 would cost nearly $100 million in the upcoming fiscal year and would have a potential recurring cost of $242 million. The bills, sponsored by Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel and Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, would expand the tax sources that can be used to pay for a voucher program that helps out low-income families. The legislation would also increase the amount of each scholarship available over the next four years.

The current scholarship program serves nearly 28,000 children and allows companies to receive a tax credit when they give money to an organization that provides private school vouchers. The current program is capped at $118 million a year and backers of the legislation said the new bill would only grow the overall cost by 25 percent.

Negron said on Thursday that the bill – which was supposed by taken up by the Senate Finance and Tax Committee – had “technical issues” which need to be fixed before it can move forward. The plan is to alter the bill and bring back a new version next week that resolves some of the questions about its impact. State economists are scheduled to discuss that revamped version and come up with new financial estimates on Friday.

“We’re trying to make sure the numbers are accurate,’’ said Negron.

(UPDATE: State economists on Friday morning considered a revamped version of the bill and concluded it would have a financial impact of $31 million in the next fiscal year. That would grow to $65 million in 2011 and $107.8 million the following year.

However, the cost to the state could be offset by potential savings in the number of students who decide to use a voucher rather than attend a public school. Figures utilized by economists suggest that could reduce the overall impact and could even save a few million dollars. But this savings is also reached by assuming that 95 percent of the students who would use the scholarships would have wound up in public schools.)