Category: Florida

Gators Crushed by Florida GOP Curse and Crimson Tide Defense, But Mainly …

Posted on Comments

. . . it was the Crimson Tide defense:

The No. 3-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide, down by a touchdown after the first play from scrimmage, found their stride and overwhelmed the No. 12 Gators 38-10 before 90,888 fans, the second-largest attendance in Florida Field history. . . .
The Crimson Tide (5-0, 2-0) defeated the Gators (4-1, 2-1) for the third straight time and have outscored UF 101-29 in those games.
The beatdown became especially costly when UF senior quarterback John Brantley was carried to the locker room with an apparent knee injury after being sacked by Alabama’s Courtney Upshaw late in the second quarter. Brantley, 11-of-16 for 190 yards, was replaced by true freshman Jeff Driskel, who failed to move the Gators past midfield in six drives.

Brantley was one of the top quarterbacks in the nation, and that injury may end his season. Why did this horrible fate befall Brantley and the previously undefeated Gators? You could blame the bone-crushing ‘Bama defense, but I think Floridians should understand that this is an inevitable consequence of the curses brought down on their state by Mike Haridopolos, Dean Cannon and the rest of the GOP leadership.

When the Florida GOP decided to move its primary to Jan. 31 — and ruin Christmas for me and millions of other Americans — I warned my friends in “The Evil State” that they were inviting divine retribution.

They laughed, but they’re not laughing now.

So if that next tropical storm system brewing in the Atlantic turns into a Category 5 hurricane that wipes out Miami, or if the citrus crop gets destroyed by a freak ice storm . . .

Well, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. And ROLL TIDE!

PREVIOUSLY:

‘She Quoted a Witness With the Improbable Name of Sarah Rumpf’

Posted on Comments

Sunshine State Sarah finds herself quoted by Dana Loesch — and cited by Keith Olbermann in naming Dana “Worst Person in the World”:

Notice how Olbermann first mocks Loesch’s name before mocking Rumpf’s name. The mocking of people’s names is a cheap sort of humor (says the guy whose blog is improbably called “The Other McCain). BTW, Dana herself pronounces her last name “Lash,” and I wonder what Olbermann would say if he knew that Sarah’s Twitter handle is “Rumpfshaker“?

Sarah was one of the people attending the Orlando debate who made the point that the audible boos for a soldier who asked a question about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” came from a couple of people, who were shushed by those sitting near them. However few or many the boo-birds were, it struck me at the time that they were booing the question, rather than the soldier. Republicans are tired of divisive “gotcha” questions in debates. I was taught as a boy that booing is poor sportsmanship. You cheer your own team, but never boo the opponent. (Booing a bad call by the refs, however, is OK.)

Anyway, among the other improbable things Olbermann might wish to mock about Sarah Rumpf is her role in helping Herman Cain secure a key endorsement before the Florida Straw Poll, and also the fact that she is a lawyer, who represented me pro bono when some left-winger hijacked my Michele Bachmann video.

And when I say Sarah represented me “pro bono,” of course, I mean she agreed to do it in return for frequent Rule 2 linkage.

SARAH RUMPF, ESQ.
If Olbermann Hates Her, You Know She’s Totally Awesome

What Florida Hath Wrought: Will Christmas Be in Iowa or New Hampshire?

Posted on Comments

Geographers have long noted that the Florida peninsula hangs off the East Coast of the United States like a small, limp penis. The metaphorical significance was made manifest Friday morning when what I’ve come to regard as “The Evil State” announced that it was moving its primary to Jan. 31, prompting a memorable reaction from Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn:

“The arrogance shown by Florida’s elected leadership is disappointing, but not surprising. Equally troubling is to see this petulant behavior rewarded with our national convention. The consequences of Florida’s intransigence must be swift and severe, including the refusal by the RNC to credential or seat any member of Florida’s presidential primary date commission at the 2012 RNC convention in Tampa.
“Regarding the timing of the First in the Nation Iowa Caucuses, Iowa will remain first. Consistent with tradition, the final Iowa Caucus date will be announced once New Hampshire sets the date of its First in the Nation Primary.”

As I said in my Friday American Spectator column, the RNC-approved schedule — with the Iowa caucuses Feb. 6 — was reasonable and humane. What Florida has done is cruel and insane. Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader columnist John DiStaso has reaction from the Granite State:

The Republican National Committee this afternoon made clear that Republican parties in any state, including New Hampshire, that violate the national party’s primary/caucus calendar by moving their primaries or caucuses earlier than the schedule set out in an RNC rule will lose half its delegates to the national convention next summer.
A senior RNC official said there will be “no discretion, no waivers. Those penalties are in place in our rules. They were enforced in 2008 and they will be enforced in 2012.”
A Florida commission today voted to jump up its primary to Jan. 31 in violation of the RNC rule. It means that New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada will also violate the rule and move their events into January, and possibly, in New Hampshire’s case, into December of this year . . .
[New Hampshire’s Republican National Committeeman Steve] Duprey, a member of the RNC rules committee who was among those who worked since 2008 on the new rule, said of Florida, “I thought they’d be smarter than this.
“This (Florida jump to January) effectively precludes Sarah Palin and anyone else from getting into the race, and it’s unfortunate for the Republican Party and for democracy. It also makes it much more daunting for any candidate who doesn’t have huge cash reserves to be able to compete and capitalize on an early state win.”
Duprey predicted the New Hampshire Primary will probably be held “right after the first of the year again, and could be even earlier than that,” meaning perhaps even in December.

Of course, if New Hampshire moves to December, Iowa’s law will require them to move to December, too. And all of this — all of it — is the fault of the Florida Republican Party leadership. The Hill notes:

The front-loading of the calendar also means presidential candidates will likely have to campaign through Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Isn’t that sweet? “The Florida Republicans Who Stole Christmas”!

By the way: Don’t believe a word those Florida Grinches say about their reasons for doing this. They’re lying through their teeth if they say this has anything to do with trying to make Florida votes count for more in the primary process. What they are doing — and everybody knows this is the real reason — is trying to force an early end to the fight for the GOP nomination.

So far the only candidate in the field who’s said a word about this crooked Florida deal is Rick Santorum. Everybody knows that Florida’s state House Speaker Dean Cannon has endorsed Rick Perry, and many people suspect Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos is a Mitt Romney supporter. By front-loading the primaries, Florida now is in effect trying to stop Herman Cain (or anyone else but Perry or Romney) from having a fair chance to compete with the big-money front-runners.

The Underground Conservative predicts “a front-loaded presidential primary system guaranteed to pick an establishment GOP candidate. Mitt Romney = John McCain 2.0,” and adds:

That’s the end result: the Cocktail Party GOP showing the Tea Party who’s boss.

You may have noticed that the sudden announcement of Florida’s Jan. 31 date swiftly followed Cain’s upset win in the Florida straw poll — a result that had caused some people to urge New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to get in. But there won’t be time now for Christie to organize a campaign in time to compete in Iowa or New Hamphire.

Bonus for the old-boy Establishment? By making this move, the Florida GOP makes it all but certain that Sarah Palin can’t run in 2012.

What would really shake things up — and it would be just like her — is if Palin decided to pay back the Establishment by messing up their little insider game and endorsing Herman Cain.

UPDATE: This is incredible! In a Facebook message to “Sunshine State Sarah,” Speaker Cannon admits what the Florida GOP is doing:

I’ll describe what happened in 2008 as the best proof that the threats of calamity in [Florida RNC member Paul] Paul’s letter are unfounded. In 2008, Iowa went Jan 3, NH went Jan 8, MI on Jan 15, NV and SC on Jan19, Florida went Jan 29, and FL had huge, arguably decisive influence. Twenty six states then held their primaries the next week on Feb 5–the “super Tuesday”–and it was over.

That is to say, Cannon and the Florida GOP are trying to guarantee a repeat of the preposterously early decision in 2008! And this disaster (which gave the nomination to John McCain) Cannon cites as proof that a front-loaded primary calendar in 2012 won’t produce a “calamity”!

Read the rest of Sarah’s post. Like many Floridians, Sarah doesn’t seem to understand how evil this Crist/Greer-style trick really is. Go back to the story I wrote on Election Night 2008:

Perhaps the most important statistic for conservatives to keep in mind today — as pundits pore over and pour out exit-poll data to tell us What It Means — is this: 53 percent of Republican primary voters did not vote for John McCain.

And how did that happen? Florida Republicans led by the corrupt Jim Greer moved up their primary, forcing the front-loaded 2008 calendar described by Cannon. Then Florida’s RINO Gov. Charlie Crist (after promising to endorse Rudy Giuliani) gave his endorsement to John McCain. Just as Cannon said, “Florida went Jan 29, and FL had huge, arguably decisive influence” — McCain won with 36% to Romney’s 31%, and then Super Tuesday sealed the deal.

Yet the Florida GOP’s attempt to repeat that rigged process — which produced a Republican nominee who didn’t get a majority of Republican votes — is claimed by Cannon as proof that 2012 won’t be a “calamity”!

Once Tea Party activists figure out what the Florida GOP bosses are up to, I guarantee you there will be hell to pay.

PREVIOUSLY:

Florida: The Evil State

Posted on Comments

Last night on Fox News, Rick Santorum alluded to the fact that Rick Perry supporter Dean Cannon is one of the Florida GOP leaders pushing to move up their primary. Santorum did not, however, refer to the growing suspicion among many Americans that the so-called “Florida Republican Party” is actually a terrorist cell organized by clandestine agents of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Here’s my American Spectator column today:

America is threatened by many crises, ranging from economic recession to international terrorism, but none of these threats are quite so immediate or so fundamentally hostile to our democratic form of government as the existential menace of Florida.
Perhaps this is a slight exaggeration, but not by too much, when you consider the multiple ramifications of Florida’s announced plan to hold its 2012 presidential primary on Jan. 31. This would completely wreck the primary schedule as other states move up their dates, and would also result in the Republican National Committee stripping Florida of half its delegates to next year’s convention, which will be held in Tampa. So Republicans in the host state of the GOP convention would be punished for a decision made by their own elected Republican leaders, who seem indifferent to the consequences.
“We know the risk we’re taking, but we’re talking about satisfying maybe 100 people versus 19 million people who could have a say in who the nominee is,” Florida state Senate president Mike Haridopolos told the Wall Street Journal, as if a Florida primary in March — where it should be, according to RNC rules — would be utterly irrelevant to the nomination process. This kind of pretzel-logic is inexplicable to sane people, but we’re talking about Florida Republicans . . .

Read the whole thing. Let’s just hope Reince Priebus can stop these crazy Florida bastards from ruining Christmas.

PREVIOUSLY:


At Least One Florida Republican Party Official Who Is Not Batsh*t Crazy

Posted on Comments

“Sunshine State Sarah” reprints an e-mail from Republican National Committeeman Paul Senft:

Republicans have always been law abiding people who obey the rules. If we don’t want to go by the rules — if we want to be arrogant and only abide by the rules we like or agree with — then we should consider another party. As long as we are a member of the Republican Party we should go by their rules. If we want to change things, we should do it through the proper channels and procedures, not break the rules because we think we are better than other states. . . .
If we break the rules again (this will be two in a row) we will alienate the remainder of the country.

Please read the whole thing.  You know who you’re going to “alienate”? Me, and every other political journalist in the country. If these crazy [obscene epithets] in the Florida GOP move their primary from March to Jan. 31, then the Iowa caucuses, currently scheduled for Feb. 6, will also have to move up, perhaps as early as Jan. 3.

January Third! Do you know what that means? The final two weeks of the Iowa campaign will stomp all over the Christmas holidays!

New Hampshire will then move up to Jan. 10 — stomping all over the BCS National Championship game Jan. 9! And considering that the undefeated Alabama Crimson Tide are looking very much like they’re ready for another national title, that would piss me off bad.

A Wall Street Journal article lists state House Speaker Dean Cannon and state Senate President Mike Haridopolos as the vicious swine responsible for this crazy idea. So who are these big shots?

What does this look like? In four words: The fix is in.

By moving up their primary, these big-shot Florida GOP power-brokers are in effect protecting the front-runners and preventing any other candidates — including Herman Cain, who stomped Cannon’s boy in Saturday’s straw poll — from gaining traction. Despite all their noise about wanting to make sure Florida is represented in the process, blah, blah, blah, Cannon and Haridopolos are actually pushing a plan that would strip the state of half its delegates to next year’s GOP convention.

Certainly wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen such shenanigans from Florida GOP bosses, eh? Remember how they wanted to fix the 2010 GOP Senate primary for Charlie Crist? The state party chairman tried to strangle Marco Rubio’s campaign by endorsing Crist 15 months before the primary and got his buddy in Washington, NRSC Chairman John Cornyn, to join in. And that state GOP chairman — now ex-chairman — Jim Greer is awaiting trial on corruption charges.

So forgive me for suspecting that these two GOP big shots are running some kind of hustle. I’m not saying they’ve done anything criminal. But it sure as hell looks shady, and even if they aren’t crooked, they’re planning to ruin Christmas and wreck the college football bowl season.

It’s un-American! They must be stopped!

MIKE HARIDOPOLOS — (850) 487-5628
DEAN CANNON — (850) 488-2742

(Please note that when calling their offices, you should be polite. Avoid profanity, personal insults and accusations of perverse sexual habits. Leave that to us professional journalists, because if Haridopolos and Cannon don’t back off this insane Jan. 31 nonsense, the political press corps will cuss these guys to hell.)

Insert Obscene Epithets Here

Posted on Comments

G–d— bastards in Florida threaten to f–k up everything:

Florida will likely hold Jan. primary,
threatening presidential calendar

Never mind how this dumbass stunt could affect the Republican primary outcome. If those bats–t crazy motherf–kers do this, I’ll be spending Christmas in Iowa.

Not since the five-week recount in 2000 will political reporters have had so much reason to hate those c–ksucking Florida sons of bitches.

Herman Cain on Obama: ‘I’m Listening to All This Bulls–t That He’s Talking About’

Posted on Comments

The winner of the Florida straw poll gets “worked up” in an interview with my young friend Chris Moody:

After a few caffeine-heavy refills at our corner table, I asked him about President Obama’s new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel–especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it’s about “math” not “class warfare.”
“Can I be blunt? That’s a lie,” Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. “You’re not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you’re not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn’t tell a lie. If it’s not class warfare, it’s highway robbery. He wants us to believe it’s not class warfare, oh okay, it’s not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that’s what he’s doing!”
Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.
“I’m not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff,” he said. “I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I’m listening to all this bulls–t that he’s talking about, ‘fairness’ and ‘balanced approach’ to get this economy going.”

Read the whole thing. Cain tells Moody that on two days, he thought about quitting the presidential race: “That’s how frustrating a campaign can be . . . But think about the number of days we’ve been on this campaign. Two ain’t that bad.”

There are times in life — and obviously, Herman Cain knows this very well — when survival is victory. He was counted out and ignored, and certainly it must have been discouraging. But he kept showing up, until he found himself at a proverbial intersection, as I explain in today’s American Spectator column:

What Herman Cain did in Orlando this weekend was both completely unexpected and entirely predictable. As late as Friday afternoon, none of the pundits expected the Atlanta businessman to win the Florida GOP’s “Presidency 5” straw poll. But if what it took to win was a dynamic speaker who could bring a roomful of grassroots Republicans to their feet, Cain’s victory was in some sense inevitable.

“Send Washington a message!” Cain thundered from the stage of the Orange County Convention Center, prompting one of seven standing ovations he received Saturday in his speech preceding the vote in which he stomped Texas Gov. Rick Perry so badly that the Republican front-runner may never recover.

Perry’s disastrous debate performance Thursday — in which he said opponents of college tuition subsidies for illegal immigrants “don’t have a heart” — was the precipitating event of Cain’s triumph. As the old saying goes, luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity, and Cain was perhaps uniquely prepared to take advantage of the opportunity Perry’s stumble presented. . . .

Please read the whole thing. We all must deal with discouragement, and Herman Cain’s persistence against the odds is an inspiring example.


PREVIOUSLY:

From Marco Rubio to Herman Cain: How the Crist Factor Hurt Perry in Florida

Posted on Comments

Marco Rubio and Sarah Rumpf

Sarah Rumpf helped facilitate Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon’s endorsement of Herman Cain, which in turn helped Cain score his crushing upset of Texas Gov. Rick Perry in Saturday’s Orlando “Presidency5” straw poll. Today, I spoke at length with “Sunshine State Sarah” to get the backstory of that endorsement, and she pointed out a little-noticed aspect of Perry’s humiliating defeat.

“Perry hired a lot of the Charlie Crist people,” she said, referring to former aides to the permatanned ex-RINO governor who got crushed in last year’s Tea Party uprising that sent Marco Rubio to the Senate. Among the Perry campaign’s top Florida hires, only Anthony Bustamante — who is “awesome,” Sarah said — was a known ally of Rubio.

While many of Crist’s ex-staffers were innocent victims of their boss’s stunning betrayal of the GOP, some of them — including some hired by Team Perry — were suspected as dirty tricksters. The Crist association gave a slight tinge of RINO-ism to the Perry campaign, undermining the Texan’s desired image as a solid conservative. So when Perry accused opponents of illegal immigration of being heartless, it stirred bitter memories of Crist’s “centrist” ways among those who had fought hard to elect Rubio.

Rumpf held one of the first Orlando-area fundraisers for Rubio’s campaign, and Plakon was also an early Rubio supporter. Both Rumpf and Plakon are backing Rubio ally Adam Hasner in the 2012 GOP Senate primary to take on Democrat Bill Nelson. It was during a Friday forum for the Republican Senate candidates that Plakon mentioned his idea of endorsing Herman Cain.

Rumpf was sitting with Plakon and his wife Susie (who has been a Cain fan for months), and Rumpf offered to connect Plakon with Cain’s campaign staff. Rumpf used Twitter to contact Cain spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael in Atlanta, Carmichael gave Rumpf the phone numbers of Cain’s staffers in Orlando, including Nathan Naidu. That evening about 7 p.m., a private meeting was arranged between Cain and the Plakons, and the endorsement was announced at a jam-packed rally of Cain supporters at the Rosen Centre Hotel. Here’s Sarah’s video, recorded just before the endorsement was made public:

The impact of this endorsement should not be underestimated. He may not be well known (yet) outside the state of Florida, but he is extremely well-liked here and very active in conservative political causes around the state. Americans for Prosperity’s Florida Chapter named him their 2011 State Representative of the Year, and has been a leader in opposing ObamaCare, sponsoring the Florida Health Care Freedom Act. Scott Plakon is a solid fiscal and social conservative and has owned and operated several successful businesses; he is the exact type of state leader Republican presidential candidates should want on their team.

Plakon’s endorsement was an enormous boost for Cain on the eve of the straw-poll, and helped convince Florida Republicans that Cain is a legitimate presidential contender.

After the 2010 campaign, when state party chairman Jim Greer and NRSC chairman John Cornyn connived to “fix” the race for Crist 15 months before the GOP primary, rank-and-file Republicans in Florida have become sick and tired of being told to “get in line,” Sarah told me.

As for the meaning of Cain’s victory in the Orlando straw poll, Sarah said, “This was not a protest vote. This was not a temper tantrum.”

When I asked her about one interpretation that Beltway pundits have made of the Orlando results, Sarah was adamant: “Nobody was talking about Chris Christie — nobody.”

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Bill Kristol.

PREVIOUSLY: