Other Offices

There are slim pickings on the Florida ballot when it comes to state-wide offices.

Nether major party has put forth a candidate qualified for the job of Chief Financial Officer.

The Republican, Jeffery “Jeff” Atwater will talk about his MBA and banking experience, but his last actual experience as a banker was for Barnett Bank, which was taken over in 1997. His next job was in marketing for a bank, not in actual banking. Further, he can talk all he wants about looking out for taxpayers, but as President of the Florida Senate, he got the “fees” on your license plates and driver’s license doubled and increased a number of other fees. If the Well from Hell hadn’t exploded, he was ready to move forwarded on a coastal drilling bill.

Loranne Ausley, the Democrat, seems to be a nice enough person, but I see no relevant experience for her since 1997 when she left the Federal government.

I would be much happier if there were an accountant in the race from either party, but they don’t tend to enter politics. This should really be a professional position outside of politics, but that will never happen.

The Attorney General candidates have the experience, but …

Pam Bondi lost me when she forced people who had lost everything in Katrina, to sue her to get their dog back. That was just low, but in keeping with her Tea Party endorsement. So far she is talking about wasting a lot of state money is stupid law suits that don’t matter to anyone except whackoes, but not much about dealing the banks who are using the courts to steal people’s homes. Banks don’t actually know who holds the mortgage to many of the houses they are foreclosing on, so people have been foreclosed on multiple times over the same mortgage with different banks claiming ownership of the note.

Dan Gelber is at least talking about these issues, but I’m just not convinced. I think the problem is that he and Bondi are both responding to interest groups in South Florida and ignoring the rest of the state.

As far as the Senate goes, anyone but Marco Rubio. The guy is such a jerk on so many levels.

Kendrick Meek was fine before he started running for the Senate. I am sorry to say that I’m seeing the outline of a Blue Dog around him, and that pains me because I have so much respect for Kenneth Quinnell. I have a month to watch what he does.

In a month, Charlies Crist could be anything, he has been morphing so frequently.

I would note that Pam Bondi and Jeff Atwater turned down an October 5 debate at the University of Florida. Adam Putnam and the Democratic candidates for CFO, Attorney General, and Agriculture Commissioner had all agreed to appear.