~WELL...~

The first volley in the silly season is winding down. Tomorrow is put up or shut up day. Me? I'll be voting my usual split and torn up ticket. First of all, I've decided not to vote for Charlie Stuart. When I thought about it, I decided that while I like Charlie and I like his brother George, I decided that there were too many negatives for me to vote for Charlie in the house seat that he is trying to wrest from Rick Keller . He didn't ask for the family business to fail. It was a mill stone hung around his neck, but he was the guy who had to watch it fold, and he ate it. For that matter, his brother George Jr. was the elder child and actually was the heir of that turkey. But there you go. The older brother didn't want to try to transform the family business and move up to compete with Office Depot and Staples in the office supply biz so George Stuart Office Supplies bellied up. That in itself isn't a terrible thing. If you can't run with the big dogs then there's no shame in running home to sit it out on the porch. But after all the dust had cleared after Charlie had decided that he wasn't a high roller like his older brother or his dad, he found himself with a big IRS lien against him. Ouch! OK... that's one way out, but... it ain't pretty. I don't know... but it ain't pretty and it definitely ain't smart politics. Do we want this on the vita of our public servant? Hmmm. I'm gonna flip the lever for Keller.

Governor: Crist. Every cop in Florida loves the guy. And they all are guys who carry guns. I'm counting on one of them shooting Crist if they find out that he's not the real deal.

Nelson/Harris? Well, Nelson is the easy way. He has very skillfully survived as a Democrat in a state that has been dominated by the GOP for the last decade. But... Ms. Harris has some good stuff on her resume too. She was the one who most people would admit saved the State of Florida for President Bush in those hot house days of the closest and ugliest campaign ever seen. The strategy for victory for the Democrats back then had been imported from the crooked Tamminy Hall days and the ward politics of the thirties and forties. They were determined to just flat out steal the damned election down in south Florida. Harris was the state functionary who stood up and made... and I mean made (forced)... the election result conting stooges return true data so it became very hard to queer the numbers. Remember? David Letterman called her ugly and an ugly hick. The MSM wanted the average American to shame her to just give things up and give the Democrats a pass so that they could pretend that they weren't shamelessly stealing the election from Bush.

She wouldn't give in. Amazingly, she won... and Bush wound up winning a very, very close race in the critical state of Florida and subsequently he was anointed Emperor of the West. But her party didn't see that as a good thing. They wanted her to just lie down, to quit, and to give Bill Nelson a pass when it can to this cycle of elections. Jeb Bush, the governor, and presidential brother, thought that the lady was unable to beat Nelson. He said that the Dems were unbeatable, so his machine wouldn't help Harris. But she kept plugging along. OK... maybe it's hopeless, but I like the fact that Harris was willing to tell the governor that she would take her chances... along with all of the wise men who wouldn't back her when she had earned their loyalty. When they didn't give her the courtesy of their support she just told them to fuck themselves and she went ahead...often down the rocky road of uncertainty on a road that she had paid for with her unflagging determination. Anyhow, I say... fuck you Jeb Bush, too. Besides, Ms. Harris's granddad, a bull gator named Ben Hill Griffin, was a friend of my grandfather. I can remember hazy days of those old toads going up to Florida Field to go to home games and flying back home to Sumter County drunk as lords... landing my granddad's old Cessna 210 A in one of granddaddy's pastures with the infant me in the back seat making a racket and singing We Are The Boys From Old Florida. It was a miracle that we didn't all die in that parade. Only the capacity to say... Fukit... Let's Just Go... made them possible. The same thing that gets today's candidate Ms. Harris... up on her hind legs. Go girl!

Besides, Harris is a good looking thing. Letterman is obviously blind as a bat... as well as being a moron. Forget Letterman. You should see that lady in a tight sweater and horse riding gear. Yum.

Finally, I intend to vote for Bill McCollum for Atty. General. Again... a friend of mine. Somehow, I've managed to garner as friends a number of guys who are actually much better than I am. Bill is that rarest of creatures... a truly honest man. I've known him since he was a young lawyer fresh out of the Naval Judge Advocate General's Office and he was involved in local races. If you go with him, we can't go wrong. The Sentinel is tapping him.

So... there's my list of shame. We'll compare tomorrow's winners with this.

Go vote. Early and often.

Bob