Alex Sink’s unimpressive gubernatorial campaign certainly didn’t need this. Trailing charisma-challenged Attorney General Bill McCollum — who knows a thing or two about losing a statewide race — Sink just sank a little lower. Imagine speaking at UCF’s commencement and getting booed. That’s what happens when you repeatedly refer to UCF as USF.
Not since, well, Bill McBride, has a gubernatorial candidate looked that unprepared.
The Hillsborough County School Board made the right call last week by coming down on the side of a non-sectarian calendar and keeping Good Friday, a consummate Christian holiday, a school day. But will the right call ever get the right results?
The odds, ultimately, are long.
The cost of Good Friday substitute-teachers (nearly $70,000 this year) and a throw-away, busy-work day for students have made recent Good Friday school days an educational travesty. No wonder 70 per cent of high school students were no shows this year. The only surprise would be if any didn’t hit the beaches.
The right results can only happen when all key adults — parents, teachers, bus drivers and certain politicians — get the religion of secularism in its proper context.
It’s officially official. Bob Buckhorn is running for mayor of Tampa.
He will be formidable — whatever the ultimate mix, which formally includes City Council Chairman Tom Scott and former police captain Marion Lewis for now. It will likely expand to County Commissioner Rose Ferlita and developer/Florida Rail Enterprise consultant Ed Turanchik — and possibly former U.S. Rep. Jim Davis and conceivably former mayor Dick Greco.
Recall Buckhorn’s previous mayoral run in 2003.
Timing is everything, and no one — not Buckhorn, Frank Sanchez or Charlie Miranda — was going to defeat Pam Iorio. Also recall that no one in ’03 had a more detailed, smart-growth agenda for Tampa than Buckhorn. The former city council member can wax wonkish on details; he can also sell sizzle; and he’s on board with the light-rail nexus to economic viability.
Scott is no longer the early leader.
Former Philadelphia Phillies “Whiz Kid” and Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts died last week.
The same news cycle as Lawrence Taylor’s statutory rape accusation and the most recent update on an erstwhile Tiger Woods’ paramour. The contrast couldn’t have been more blatant.
Roberts, 84, who used to coach USF and had called Tampa home since 1977, was one of the game’s good guys. No scandals, no police blotters, no swagger. A college-educated (Michigan State University) gentleman who happened to be uncommonly good at being a professional athlete. He was married to Mary Roberts for more than 50 years.
Roberts was to Philadelphia during the 1950s what Mickey Mantle was to New York, Ted Williams to Boston, Stan Musial to St. Louis and Ernie Banks to Chicago. I know; I grew up in Philly. Roberts was — in a city notorious for booing Santa Claus — never booed by baseball’s most unforgiving, fickle fans. He got the ultimate pass in the city of brotherly mug. That’s a virtual canonization.
He won nearly 300 games, mostly for Phillies’ teams that weren’t very good. He won 20 games or more six years in a row. One year, 1952, he won 28. He once pitched 28 straight complete games — and, no, that’s not a typo. He was his own “closer.” He seemingly started every All Star game for a decade. His number (36) was retired (1962) before he did.
He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1956. He was that big.
And that humble. To be in his unassuming company was like being with a retired librarian talking about all those great writers. Only he was one of his calling’s greatest. He loved a good, back-in-the-day reverie, but he could also speak emotionally about one of his favorite causes: the Tampa-based Gold Shield Foundation, which assists families of slain police officers and firefighters.
I got to interview him a couple of times in 2003, with the publication of his biography, “My Life.”
Of his life in the steadfast lane, Roberts matter-of-factly offered this. “The ‘innocence,’ if you will, is real,” he said. “I was the kind of guy who went to the ballpark and then back to the hotel. I’m not pulling punches. That was my way of living.”
And what a singular life. I was fortunate to have finally met him, however briefly.
So here we are in the most polarized, zero-sum political environment in memory, and Charlie Crist, the politically androgynous, ideological agnostic, still has a senatorial shot.
And even though he was chased out of the Republican primary and even though political self-interest has always been his signature trait, he has a viable shot in a three-way race. It’s the nature of three-way races. A plurality — or barely more than a third of the votes — can win it.
If enough people are as disgusted as they say they are about partisan animosities and gridlock, Crist could certainly benefit. In effect, he could harvest the “none of the above” vote. His appeal: pleasant person whose allegiance is to the people — not the party.
Of course, that only appeals to those who haven’t followed his career since he kickstarted it in 1998 by taking one for the team against unbeatable, incumbent Sen. Bob Graham in 1998. And then haven’t paid much attention to his empty-suited, pre-veto gubernatorial stewardship.
Lack of organization and savvy party support is a critical issue for a party-less candidate. That was already apparent at Crist’s well-trumpeted debut as an independent candidate last week in Straub Park in his hometown of St. Petersburg. The 5:45 event drew an estimated crowd of 300, much of it seemingly comprised of media and family members. Crist had the opportunity to deliver an anti-partisan, anti-pandering, anti-party, pro-America, pro-Florida speech that should still be cycling on YouTube. But it was “for the people” pablum more worthy of Morgan & Morgan ads.
But he did score Dick Greco to endorse and introduce him. It was more than a DINO and a RINO. The former Tampa mayor still matters and will be helpful behind the scenes as well.
And this much is certain. As a spectator sport, this will be a lot more fun than that Rubio-Meek campaign we were almost saddled with.
It’s not surprising that the position of Marco Rubio, a proponent of expanded offshore oil drilling, would be under increased scrutiny in the aftermath of the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
Neither is it surprising that Rubio’s response was well parsed and politically prudent. In effect, he said: “Let’s investigate this really, really thoroughly and not move ahead on more drilling right now, although I suspect this was a freakish occurrence — likely not enough to preclude future drilling, which, to be sure, is no less necessary.”
Among comments Rubio did literally make, this one as quoted by the St. Petersburg Times: “I believe you can safely drill for oil. It’s been done all over the world, it’s been done in the Gulf of Mexico. We should be very concerned with what led to this disaster, and until that question is answered I don’t think we can move forward on anything else.”
Also among Rubio comments, this one quoted by the Tampa Tribune: “The question is why did this happen and is this something that has the potential to be commonplace or is it an isolated instance…It would be irresponsible to make any line-in-the-sand statements until all the information is known.”
So, maybe it’s not surprising that the Times’ headline was: “Rubio Backs Off Drilling Support,” while the Trib went with: “Rubio Won’t Back Off Stance On Gulf Drilling.”
Something for everyone except old-school editors who still venerate truth-in-headlines convention.
All things to all readers — while not abandoning your “drill here, drill now, pay less” base. What a scenario. On balance, as it were, opposite-take headlines was good news for Rubio.
More often than not, the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is an atavism. More winces than genuine guffaws. Dean Martin’s Friars’ Roast it isn’t.
It once worked as a uniquely humbling American reminder that the most powerful position in the world is a function of election — not inheritance or coup. Nobody in a democracy is above being taken down a peg or two. It’s conceptually healthy.
During the height of the Cold War, it spoke volumes that the West Germans referred irreverently — but good-naturedly — to Chancellor Brandt as “Schnapps Willy.” No way East Germans would have treated Brandt’s counterpart, the hard-line, Soviet puppet Erich Honecker, with endearingly egalitarian punch lines.
The formula for the overly long, often tedious Correspondents’ Dinner calls for a professional comedian. That’s a big part of the problem. The comedian is either over-the-top disrespectful to the office of the presidency — think Stephen Colbert and George W. Bush — or safely lame — think Jay Leno the other night. Indeed, he did work in a mother-in-law joke.
As for the president, if it’s not John Kennedy or Barack Obama — or Dana Carvey channeling George Bush Sr. — it looks like what it is: an obligatory effort by someone with more important things to do.
Having said that, last Saturday’s Dinner did showcase President Obama at his spot-on delivery best. His timing was prime time, his material a combination of the self-deprecating, which everyone likes, and quality zingers, which all but the targets like. A couple of Obama outtakes:
* “Odds are that the Salahis are here. There haven’t been people more unwelcome at a party since Charlie Crist.”
* “I happen to know that my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth.”
The reparations-for-slavery crowd had to be chagrined big time recently with high-profile commentaries by African-American author-intellectuals Henry Louis Gates and Thomas Sowell. Both underscored the point, often obscured by political correctness and white guilt, that the odious institution’s villains far transcend the West.
“Advocates of reparations for the descendants of those slaves generally ignore this untidy problem of the significant role that Africans played in the trade, choosing to believe the romanticized version that our ancestors were all kidnapped unawares by evil white men, like Kunta Kinte was in Roots,” said Gates. “The truth, however, is much more complex: Slavery was a business, highly organized and lucrative for European buyers and African sellers alike.”
Pointed out Sowell: “If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance. Yet today there are Americans who have gone to Africa to apologize for slavery — on a continent where slavery has still not been completely ended, to this very moment.”
The commentary about the Tampa Bay Rays’ attendance and speculation about relocation ratcheted up again with the recent, disappointing turnouts for the Rays’ two games with the Oakland Athletics. Both barely broke five figures. No other MLB games drew fewer fans either of those nights.
Ironic that the competition was the A’s, who have serious facility and attendance issues and could be relocating before the Rays ever leave the Trop. The A’s play in one of those old-style multiple-purpose stadiums and draw poorly — even though they have made nine playoff and three World Series appearances since 1988. Their viable options: find another home in Oakland, head to nearby Fremont, or relocate to San Jose, the biggest city (950,000) in the country without pro baseball, football or basketball.
Apparently former Bucs’ tackle Warren Sapp is acting as a tutor of sorts to the Bucs’ two top draft choices, defensive linemen Gerald McCoy of Oklahoma and Brian Price of UCLA. As a seven-time Pro Bowl selection, Sapp can certainly help by sharing technique tips. He was one of the best.
But here’s hoping that’s all he shares. Sapp was also known as one of the more arrogant players off the field.