Months back, I pleaded to the federal government in this column space to stop prosecuting Corrine Brown. Last week, they heeded that and similar advice. Brown’s guilty plea ended the overheated drama of last decade’s One Door for Education saga, characterized by fat checks from the donor class for opaque purposes, promised donations from Brown to charitable entities that didn’t
It’s pretty clear that much of the Tallahassee Establishment – the TE – still doesn’t get it. This detachment from reality began in 2010, when the TE rallied around then-Attorney General Bill McCollum and anointed him the next governor of Florida. Rick Scott had different ideas. Scott, who spent his life in the private sector, ran a campaign against “career
On Thursday morning, the Fox & Friends program began the 7 o’clock hour blasting the city of Jacksonville. The catalyst was a long shot of the Main Street Bridge, and that’s all it took for host Brian Kilmeade to go off. “The city of Jacksonville’s got such great potential. They’ve got these bridges. Beautiful scenery. They’ve got to rebuild that
Imagine you’re Clay Yarborough, a current state representative who thought the next campaign was all set. A few months back, you basically were a shoo-in for state Senate. Your two opponents got out of the race to replace termed-out Aaron Bean after Senate leadership endorsed you. One of those opponents, state Rep. Jason Fischer, had about a million bucks raised
Plus, 5 takeaways from the City Council election Republican Nick Howland will be sworn in on Jacksonville’s City Council Wednesday, after receiving 51.7% of the vote in Jacksonville’s special election last week. His opponent, Democrat Tracye Polson, got 48.3% of the vote. About 1-in-5 registered Duval voters cast a ballot in the race. Below, see how your precinct voted in
Before the 2000 Bush/Gore election, Tim Russert, the late Meet the Press host, was asked what he would be watching the most on Election Day. Russert scribbled out three words on his whiteboard: “Florida, Florida, Florida.” Of course, it turned out that the leader of the free world was decided in Florida that year by 537 votes. Not much has
The First Election of the Jacksonville City Council At Large Group 3 race is in the books, and nobody won. That’s the reality of the open primary that we saw last Tuesday, in which Democrat Tracye Polson was the leading vote getter, with Republican Nick Howland running behind by less than half a percentage point. There were some who thought
Today is election day. Albeit it’s a small election, a special election to fill the seat of the late at-large City Councilman Tommy Hazouri, but it’s election day nonetheless. I voted early, last week, at the library. I walked in, pushing my daughter in her stroller to a room full of poll workers who had no one to serve. They
We will have a few live August contests in this region next summer. While top-of-the-ticket stuff leaves some intrigue for the November general election, the down-ballot stuff is often of greatest interest in these primaries. For those who need it, here’s a cheat sheet breaking down the partisan dynamics in play and the potential outcomes. The biggest-stakes competitive primary is
Time was when a candidate could run for mayor or whatever they wanted in Duval County, armed with nothing more than a vat of Brylcreem, one of those old-style Jacksonville twangy accents that have all but disappeared, and an endorsement from the big Baptist church Downtown. Times have changed. The good ol’ boy system has begun its long goodbye. Politics