Billie Kennedy, Jr. agrees with me that the GOP currently in position to defeat Allen Boyd. Writing in Northwest Florida Rebublican, Kennedy says:

While I do think that we have a long way to go to get rid of Congressman Allen Boyd, we can make it happen. We have a couple of Republican contenders who are raising money feverishly and need even more to compete with Congressman Boyd’s considerable war chest.

But at this moment, we have a long way to go to move Boyd from a safe Democrat seat to a Republican seat

None of the current crop of candidates have made any recent updates on their web sites or are consistently using Twitter. To be fair, Charlie Ransom has added a pretty good intro video on his site.

Kennedy indicates that a few of the candidates are having some success raising money. The primary will be key though as with so many entered, individual name recognition among candidates is key. It may be that the candidate whom raises the most money wins. Still, the candidates need to be ramping up their alternative media resources.

UPDATE: Panama City businessman Steve Southerland leads in raising money. Southerland has an advantage in that he’s the only Republican drawing from the Panama City area. The majority of the rest are attempting to raise money around Tallahassee and are going against a popular Tea Party candidate in Paul McKain. Santa Rosa Beach attorney Barbara Olschner is a dark horse in the race and can initially be the only one receiving potential finacial support in affluent south Walton County.

Posted under FLORIDA #2

While Bill McCollum joined Connie Mack and jumped on the “jump on Charlie Crist because I want to be like my cool GOP friends badwagon”, its time to wonder just how alone they are in their opinion. Some evidence came when it was revealed in the mail that Charlie Crist was getting.

The governor’s office has received nearly 120,000 messages about the bill. Though about 51,000 were still unread, almost 65,000 of the logged messages opposed the bill. Just 3,000 supported the bill.

It’s true that a significant number of these came from teachers. The numbers include my email. Yet the realtively low number of the bill’s proponents is telling as well as it indicates just how little passion there was for it.

Soon, the state’s professional GOP pols may begin finding out that they are isolated. They need to realize the bill they rammed through without input unmasks their efforts are a partisan power grab.

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Maybe. And here’s why.

I decided to make a commitment this past weekend to cover the FLA 2 congressional race and in particular, the GOP attempts to defeat Allen Boyd (D). I made e-mail inquiries to all the GOP candidates as to the status of their campaign while indicating that I was a conservative blogger. My inquiries generates only two replys. One from Santa Rosa Beach attorney Barbara Olschner and the other from Tallahassee businessman Eddie Hendry. In fact, both candidates returned my EMs personally. Four others failed to answer.

I recieved a comment on my blog from another blogger in supports of independent candidate, Paul McKain.

This is not an ego thing by any stretch. But candidates are going to have to get their stuff together if they want to defeat Boyd. They need to be sending Tweets, EM updates or making blog posts.

Admittedly, these are all grass roots operations. Each campaign is in it’s infancy. Lets hope it gets better as the candidates get more organized. But they must do so quickly and effectively.

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George LeMieux added his name to the list of Republicans whom chose suicide for the false choice that SB 6 offers.

There’s a reason why the state’s association of superintendents – many of them Republicans – asked Govenor Crist to veto the bill. Not only is it bad for education, it’s fiscally untenable.

Is it that too many Republicans are drinking at the the anti-union trough and let it cloud there judgement? It’s almost as if education for Republicans is a similar holy grail as is health care for Democrats. And like Obamacare, voters will figure it out.

So it will go that Republicans handed the initiative they gained to the folly of Obamaism back to Democrats. And it is for the same reason in that the party’s power brokers demonstrated that they could not be trusted to have good judgement in something so important. For Democrats it was health care and for the GOP it is education.

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Unlike in the mythical Tea Party racist taunts at John Lewis, video and audio evidence exists of protestors acting badly. One of the victims was a member of Govenor Bobby Jindal’s staff.

As you won’t see any MSM coverage of the assault and you will on FOX, the incident will be further evidence that the former is little more than a propoganda arm of the Democrat Party.

Human Events is reporting that the couple were not wearing Sarah Palin pins as had been previously reported.

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Their actions validate the heavy-handedness of the our state’s GOP legislators. I wish they hadn’t. Normally, we don’t like to get involved into the politics of our own profession, but SB6 went goes so far over the top it prompts some to consider extreme measures.

To be fair, I teach in a far different school district than Dade County. The pressures the teachers that the district’s teachers face are far different from mine.

Still, it’s noteworthy that under Florida law teachers cannot go on strike. Yet working conditions were imposed on us without input or consent and brings into discussion provisions of our state’s constitution.

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There are 40,000 Republicans of the 130,000 teachers among the Florida Education Association (FEA). I am one of those Republicans and I depart from by bretheren on SB 6. It’s a bad bill. It’s wrong on substance, intent and implementation.

With the respect to the later, there is no implementation in place. GOP attempts to cry “misinformation” and “lying” are sickeningly similar to Democrat assertions regarding Obamacare, but the muscle behind both is the same. They are both driven by false narratives, facts and choices.

Crist signaled some time ago that he would sign the bill and people like Jim Thrasher have been taunting him publically of that stance. But Crist has yet to sign the bill and has until Friday to do so – or to veto it.

Quite frankly, my party has long gotten education wrong as they have seen any associative legislation as a blood fued with unions. I have no idea whay the Florida GOP congress has decided to shove such a plan down the throats of all Floridians as they are currently doing. Perhaps in their arrogance, they feel as of they are wearing the same pair of shoes as do Washington Democrats and their disturbingly partisan President: They won, have a majority and we will do what we want just because we can.

As the conservative GOP darling, Marco Rubio has graced SB 6 with his blessing, he has given his opponent an opportunity to show that he is a man with better judgement. Rubio didn’t think the bill through and relied on his mentor, Jeb Bush, a man who has a record of a questionable agenda with respect to education.

While the conservatives that are currently worshiping at the altar of Marco likely loathe John McCain, it is McCain’s independence from GOP power brokers that Florida needs most right now. Charlie Crist is losing badly to Rubio now in their race for the GOP senate nod, and should know that he cannot win. He’s signaled that he may veto this bill and has until Friday to decide.

It an irony that couldn’t be made up, it may be that the much malligned Crist saves Florida Rpublicans from themselves. With Senate Bill 6 quickly becoming a tsunami of discontent around the state, it’s passing could cause a seismic shift in Florida politics which some GOP and many independents switching to the Democrat Party. For some of those 40,000 GOP teachers – a number that does not inclube members not affiliated – SB 6 can create countless one issue voters who no longer vote for Republicans.

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Thanks for the information from RetiredPublicSafety.

It’s clear that McKain is an impressive candidate and has been involved with Tea party events. He’s been receiving some early publicity and will not have to mess with a GOP primary in August.

However, a strong run by McKain will split the conservative vote with whomever comes out of the GOP primary. This Perot effect is what many have been fearful would spawn from the electric Tea Party movement. It would assure Boyd’s return to Congress.

Look for Boyd to insist that McKain be included in debates against with whomever gets the GOP nod.

RSP also points out there are two other GOP candidates, Charlie Ransom and write-in candidate Robert Ortiz. I’m linking Ortiz as a independent.

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Two vulnerable Florida congressional Dems voted against their party by voting against raising the debt ceiling. Suzzane Kosmas and Alan Grayson joined the GOP in voting against raising the amount the government can borrow.

I know. THAT Alan Grayson. He normally rolls over for anything Pelosi wants. Kosmas at least has some history in moderation, but Grayson is a zealot that seemed to be auditioning for his own show on MSNBC. Either he knew the vote would come out the way it did, or he blinked. It could be that Grayson is feeling the heat and is seeking to save his political hide in November.

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President Obama’s SOTU address tonight promises to be one of the most watched in history. He has few allies tonight, but there’s an easy way to recapture a significant portion of the American electorate and take significant pressure off his party:

Announce tonight that he’s signing an executive order that ends the civilain prosecution of the 9-11 conspirators and returns them to a path toward a military tribunal. And announce that he’s signing a second order that classifies the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, as an enemy combatant and cancel his Miranda status. He will be turned over to military authority and be interogated for intelleigence and eventually tried by a military tribunal.
Talk about having some shock the house value.

He’ll finally get an issue that the GOP will give him cover while taking away a hammer that they have to bash his party with. He’ll gain some considerable political capital back and be able to persue some of his domestic goals. It’s a decision that will cost him nothing politically. Essentially the move allows him to change the subject and gain the bully pulpit again.

No way he does it though.

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