This is our regular feature where every day I do a quick post with the top posts/stories that I think people should read from the previous day.
1. Progressive Florida’s diary – Florida State Senate Part 2: The Swing Districts: “Part 2 will focus on the ’swing’ or Category 4 districts for which elections will be held in 2008. These are districts where Gore took between 47-53% of the vote in 2000. There are four of these such districts that will have elections in 2008. They include the 7th, 11th, 13th, and 25th districts. At this time, it looks like Republican incumbents will be running for re-election in all of them, but this could change, particularly if Bill Young (US FL-10) were to retire from Congress. Two Republicans on this list could conceivably run for that seat.”
2. Florida Kossacks – Looking Forward to 2008: “First off, 2008 brings us the campaign to replace George W. Bush in the White House. It can’t come a moment too soon for me. And it really does get out the gate right away with the Iowa Caucuses on January 3rd. Florida finally gets to weigh in when it still matters on January 29th. With all the controversy over going early, we are in a unique position to set the table for Super Duper Tuesday, one week later on February 5th. We could very well know who the nominees for both sides are going to be by the time the smoke clears that night. Or maybe not.”
3. Tampa Bay Blue – Jeb Bush Funneled Millions to Insider Railroads; CSX Deal: “Since 2005, through legislation championed by former Gov. Jeb Bush, millions have gone to a half-dozen railroads whose owners and executives were insiders in the DOT planning process. They also were major donors to state political candidates.”
4. Tampabay Democrat’s Diary – Jeb Bush and Subprime Mortgage Crisis: “Jeb Bush left Tallahassee for Miami in January 2007, having served two terms as governor. He incorporated Jeb Bush & Co., and in June was hired as a consultant with Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street investment banking firm. In July and August, Stipanovich approved the purchase of $842 million in securitized mortgage bonds from Lehman. Today the value of those bonds is practically zero, vanished in the debt crisis that is tipping the national economy into a recession.”
5. Miami-Dade Dems – Southern strategy further explained: “This is a history lesson, and one that I’ve featured here earlier this year, back when Harry Dent’s obituary first appeared. Now he’s again in the NY Times, taking up two pages in the Sunday Times magazine, as one of the notables who passed away during 2007. This is a man who worked in the Nixon White House — that’s 30-some years ago, but tell me: Is his work still being done in this Republican administration? ‘President Nixon rewarded Dent with a White House job as his keeper of those same regional code words, the man in charge of demonstrating to the South that the White House would not be working to enforce federal civil rights laws, while appearing publicly to endorse them. That move would soon be enshrined in the press as the Southern Strategy.’”
6. Pensito Review – Why I’m Endorsing John Edwards for President by Trish.
7. Here are the sites in our Candidate Watch Network that have been updated: Florida Senate Watch, Florida Cabinet Watch and Florida House Watch.
8. For more, as always, go to the FLA Politics daily round-up.
