It’s Politics
If you are from this area the headline in the Local Puppy Trainer tells you everything you need to know: Peaden defends Crist after Gaetz blasts him over tourism.
State senator Durell Peaden, MD, Ob-Gyn, Esq., NRA, GOP represents North Okaloosa County, and was born in the area. He has sponsored most of Florida’s whacko gun legislation.
State senator Don Gaetz BA [religion and political science], GOP is Florida’s third wealthiest elected official and a retired health care industry executive from North Dakota via Jacksonville.
Charlie Crist is Florida’s orange Governor who recently became an independent when the RPOF [Republican Party of Florida] decided he was actually a communist for being publicly happy about receiving Federal stimulus funds, that enabled the Republican legislature to balance the state budget while pretending they weren’t actually raising any taxes.
The rest of the country when reading about this probably thinks it has something to do with the Gulf Gusher, but that’s the excuse, not the reason. Gaetz was acting as the spokesweasel for the state senate leadership who remembered at the last minute to pull the bill that would have authorized drilling within the 10½-mile limit in state waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
Charlie has proposed a special session to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ban drilling in Florida’s waters. The leaders of the legislature are counting on income from selling drilling leases to close the humongous gap in next year’s budget while still pretending they aren’t raising taxes. They are hoping that everyone forgets about the oil spill by next Spring, so they don’t want to go on the record as supporting oil drilling while BP is still poisoning the Gulf.
Peaden said it was about politics, and this is a rare event – he’s right. Gaetz knows that the state doesn’t have any money, and couldn’t do much in the way of media unless BP ponied up the cash. Charlie really squeezed to get Visitflorida to steal from another campaign to put out the ads it did. Hell, Gaetz was the one who told the local media that BP hadn’t sent the cash, despite promises. Florida finally got the cash yesterday.
Because I am cursed, Gaetz is my state senator, and his spawn is my state representative.
4 comments
that’s some serious karma.
Charlie Crist is a credit to orange-Americans everywhere, and proof that the Republican Party is hostile towards people of color, even if said color is not one that exists in nature ;). But, uhm, I’m not getting it. Charlie is calling a special session to put a Constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban drilling? So this is part of his Senate campaign? Please enlighten me more, Florida politics is so opaque to those of us outside it!
I hate to do it to other people because I have been represented by some of the most worthless scum in politics, no matter where I’ve lived.
OT: thanks for the link.
Badtux, Charlie is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them, and even if they don’t currently like him, he likes the RPOF. He wants to prevent them from doing something that would be incredibly stupid. If they permit drilling, that’s the end of the party. The legislature is going to be forced to address the revenue side next Spring and drilling was the “magic bullet”, it was going to plug the gap without having to look at the mess the Republicans have created with all of their tax cutting.
There’s no way of drilling with an invisible rig, so the first one that goes up is the end of the funding for the party. The big donors live on the coast and they don’t want to look out of their million dollar homes at oil rigs.
The Panhandle is the most Republican part of the state, and people now know the pain of an oil rig disaster. They won’t forget quickly.