Monthly Archives: January 2014
TFS Pod #9: Central Florida House Races
This week Kartik and Ryan discuss the key State House races in 2014 across Osceola, Orange and Seminole counties. We also touch on: Historic failures of Democrats in Central Florida reversed in 2012 The impact of Fair Districts on the current map versus the partisan gerrymander produced in 2002 Split-ticket voting of the past versus […]
Flashback Friday – Martin Luther King Jr. and St Augustine: Changing Florida
Due to the MLK Jr. Birthday Holiday, we are re-running a piece we originally published April 4th 2013 to coincide with the 45th anniversary of MLS Jr.’s death. We have added some additional material and context to the original piece. —– Today is the 45th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and this week […]
North Florida Already Feeling the Brunt of Anti-competitive American/US Airways Merger
Several months ago the US Department of Justice along with several state’s Attorney Generals (including Florida’s Pam Bondi) sued to stop the merger of American Airlines with US Airways. The two carries combined will create one of the world’s largest airlines and since US Airways maintains the lowest fares of any network carrier in the […]
Thursday Bookshelf: Florida Politics at the end of the Jim Crow Era
If you want to gain any sort of understanding of how Florida shifted from rural deep south state in the 1920s and 1930s towards urban toward enlightened mega-state in the 1970s two must read classic books about southern politics are required. First is V.O. Key Jr’s classic Southern Politics: In State and Nation, written back in 1949 […]
New TFS Features Launch This Week
Beginning this week we will be launching three new features: Thursday – Thursday Bookshelf … a look at one or more books about Florida or Politics worth a read Friday – Flashback Friday … Florida Political History Saturday – TFS Podcast … Our podcast moves to Saturday and becomes weekly beginning this week. We continue […]
Rise and Fall of the Lieutenant Governor in Florida
The last few weeks of political discourse in Florida, I must say have amused me. First we had many a Democratic activist making an issue about the failure of Governor Rick Scott picking a Lieutenant Governor after 10 months of the post being vacant. That was followed up by the Governor picking someone for the […]
Pro Iran Sanctions Ad About Debbie Wasserman Schultz Unfair
These ads that began airing this weekend targeting US Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz are not only dramatic, but wrong. They assume if someone opposes the current batch of sanctions being proposed on Iran, they are anti-Israel and denote a lack of toughness on Iran’s nuclear program. From the ad “She says she’s pro-Israel. She says she’s […]
Marco Rubio goes back to the future with yesteryear-like comments on the Taliban and LBJ’s War on Poverty
The national press this past week has been abuzz about the latest initiative from Florida’s Junior Senator, a war on poverty that takes the programs and vision of Lyndon Johnson and sends them back to the states, essentially dismantling the programs. That Rubio made his proposal on the 50th anniversary of LBJ’s State of the […]
CFO Atwater bid for FAU presidency denied, Broward Dem upheaval averted
As our readers doubtless know by now, CFO and Tallahassee powerhouse Jeff Atwater’s bid to leave his office to become President of Florida Atlantic University has failed. The committee in charge for selecting the new president explained its snub of Atwater citing a wish for its choice to appear apolitical in nature, though former U.S. […]
TFS Pod: North Florida Election 2014 Preview
On today’s TFS Pod we begin our journey around the state looking at races in North Florida. Starting in Pensacola, Kartik Krishnaiyer and Ryan Ray discuss the trends that turned the area that was solidly Democratic at the legislative level prior to 1992 into a GOP bastion. We track the decline of the Democrats in […]
The Florida Squeeze 