Peter Schorsch - page 445

Tuesday’s slate of elections in Florida and Tampa Bay certainly provided a list of winners and losers — and I’m not just talking about the candidates. Here is my list of the real winners and losers coming out of Tuesday’s elections. Statewide Winners Rep. Eric Eisnaugle – Several steps closer to being Mr. Speaker-Designate. The Establishment – In this year when the word “Cantor” became a verb (as in, “Candidate X was Cantored in the primary by an unknown, first-time opponent”), the state Republican…

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Being a Florida state Senator does come with a few cool perks. In a new ad released Wednesday, St. Petersburg Republican Jeff Brandes talks about Florida’s historic leadership role in technology and innovation. “Leading the race into space (Kennedy Space Center), the invention of the PC computer (IBM in Boca Raton), new drinks to power the competition (Gatorade from the University of Florida), and technology to protect the world (Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base), we’ve never been far from the front…

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A morning read of what’s hot in Florida politics. Today’s Rise and Shine Fact-iversary is brought to you by Sachs Media Group,  the firm best known for smart, strong and strategic counsel across the diverse and ever-changing media landscape: One of the most inspiring addresses in American history was delivered on this day in 1963. That’s when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and gave his “I Have a Dream” speech …

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It’s only Wednesday and already it’s been a tough week for Republican House candidate Chris Sprowls. On Tuesday, his allies running in their own races for the Florida House lost, severely diminishing Sprowls’ chances of becoming Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. On Wednesday, Sprowls — a charismatic, Weatherfordian, candidate for the House District 65 seat which encompasses Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Palm Harbor and East Lake — put his foot in his mouth in such a way that his words will undoubtedly be the…

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Remember the snarky days of 2009 when this blogger and the writers of the Tampa Bay Times’ Bay Buzz blog would swap paint. In April of that year, I calculated that more than 10% of the posts and comments on the Bay Buzz blog somehow involved me. Going back and forth with editor Heather Uriquedes and reporters Cristina Silva and Aaron Sharockman actually helped make this log what it is today. What is SPB today? Well, it’s mostly what Bay…

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Two candidates running in state House District 15 — Jay Fant and Paul Renner –finished only three votes apart after the ballot counting was done Tuesday night. Under Florida law, if two candidates are separated by less than a half of a percent, there must be a machine recount — if less than a quarter of a percent, all provisional ballots must be examined by hand. The recount can’t legally start before 5 p.m. Thursday and is scheduled to start…

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Editor’s Note: This article is cross-posted on PoliticsOfPot.com. Opponents of marijuana legalization efforts often point to concerns that marijuana use leads to the use of more harmful drugs — the classic gateway drug example. Proponents of medicinal marijuana, conversely, suggest that legalization of cannabis can lead to the more appropriate management of pain, which in turn would reduce the need for and the use of addictive narcotics. Some doctors and scholars set out to find which of these patterns is…

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