From The Ledger:
Polk County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson made it a three-party race Friday for the U.S. House of Representatives District 12 seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow.
Wilkinson, elected to the commission as a Republican, is running for Congress as a member of the Tea Party. On his campaign documents, the Bartow resident said he is a member of that party and not a registered member of any other party.
Randy Wilkinson is NO CONSERVATIVE! He is attached at the hip with some of the most progressive socialist anti-hunting folks you’ll find in Florida, and he’ll jump ship and swim for whatever votes he can find. Just ask the Sportsmen and Sportswomen in Polk County, or email me. I’ll fill you in on the entire story.
Hitch
President
United Waterfowlers – Florida
http://www.unitedwaterfowlersfl.org
The TEA Party is a professionally run political party.
Already having an elected TEA party official and three nominees for Congress is huge.
Join up at http:// http://www.FloridaTeaParty.us
Tea Party rules!
The tea-baggers are just a sad group of old, white, rich, malcontent republicans who hate blacks, hispanics, asians, the middle class and the poor and hate the fact that we have a black president. When they howl “TAKE BACK AMERICA!!!” they mean to take it back from the minorities. Luckily the middle class and the poor far outnumber the tea-baggers so they will have little effect in November. Mark Montgomery NYC, NY 10036 [email protected]
FLORIDA’S CHARLIE CRIST:
Former House Speaker Rubio looked like the longest of long-shots, but some Crist advisors took note of what was happening among the grass roots. In June, Pasco County’s GOP executive committee voted 73-9 that it preferred Rubio over Crist. More than two dozen other county executive committees and GOP clubs held similarly lopsided votes in the coming months, but Crist continued to dismiss Rubio and brush off calls to start attacking him.
Slowly, Rubio built up momentum and buzz.
Meanwhile, Crist had another dramatic decision to make in August: who to fill out the unexpired Senate term of Mel Martinez. In a series of high-profile interviews, Crist summoned GOP icons such as U.S. Rep. Bill Young, former Reps. Clay Shaw and Lou Frey, former Attorney General Jim Smith, and state Sen. Dan Webster to join him before the TV cameras.
Then he picked George LeMieux, his former campaign manager and chief of staff.
“That made no one happy and it angered a number of well-respected candidates because of the way it was handled,” said Republican strategist J.M. “Mac” Stipanovich of Tallahassee. “There’s a general perception that George LeMieux was a poor choice and one made perhaps out of weakness. . . . Try to imagine Jeb Bush appointing [former chief of staff] Sally Bradshaw to the Senate. It’s just too hard to envision.”
For more than a year, GOP activists and donors had been complaining about lavish spending and financial mismanagement by Greer, the state party chairman Crist had plucked from obscurity and who became one of his closest friends and advisors. Crist infuriated many grass-roots activists by standing firmly behind the chairman, even as top money raisers threatened to stop helping the party if Greer controlled the money.
“He said to me, `You have no proof! You have no proof!’ ” longtime money raiser Al Hoffman recounted of one heated conversation with Crist. “I said, `Get your a– over to headquarters and sit down with the chairman of the audit committee!’ He said, `I’ll take it under advisement’ and never did anything.”
Greer now faces a criminal investigation and his chief benefactor is losing a fight for his political survival. By many estimates his only hope at winning is to turn his back on the party he grew up in and run a long-shot campaign as an unaffiliated candidate.
But looking upbeat as ever, Crist is relishing the attention. On Friday, he was mobbed by high school students in Broward County wanting to thank him, shake his hand, take his picture and get his autograph. Crist signed in as a visitor.
“Name. Company,” Crist read from the sign-in form. “Charlie. People.”
(Miami Herald staff writers Beth Reinhard and Patricia Mazzei contributed to this report. Adam C. Smith can be reached at [email protected].)
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/25/92824/floridas-endangered-crist-ignored.html#ixzz0meKoEvpX
Pew Poll:
The in-depth poll found Americans not only rejecting the idea of an activist government, but a growing number urging that its power be curtailed. The findings reinforce the anti-big government message of tea party rallies and suggest anew that incumbents, particularly Democrats, face a strong headwind in this fall’s elections for control of Congress.
“By almost every conceivable measure, Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days,” said the report from the non-partisan Pew Research Center.
The center said its new survey found “a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.”
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/18/92394/poll-americans-distrust-of-federal.html#ixzz0mdt2Kfgg