Greetings this Monday morning from the Parkway Inn Motel in Miami Springs, right off of Miami International Airport.
And when I mean “right off,” I mean I thought a 747 was going to land on my roof last night.
Yes, I’m here today for Marco Rubio’s big announcement tonight, where he’s expected to announce his candidacy for president.
That’s been expected. What wasn’t was Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s little bombshell (a bomblet?) on Saturday that he will not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate next year, the seat that Rubio currently holds.
This has unleashed a flood of speculation among political observers about who else might jump into the contest. Along with Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera and former state House Speaker Will Weatherford, several members of the state’s congressional delegation have been mentioned as possible participants, including (dare we say), Pinellas County’s David Jolly.
Just imagine what that would portend if Jolly were to go for a Senate run. That would make the CD13 race next year another battle royale a la Jolly vs. Sink in 2014, though with every other congressional race on the ballot, I’m going to go out on a limb and state that I don’t believe that $12 million will be spent winning it.
Good timing indeed by Democrat Eric Lynn, who officially announced he was a candidate for the seat next year. If Jolly opts to run for Senate, it will be interesting to see if any other Democrat gets into the contest. And there’s never a shortage of potential GOP candidates for the seat (Jeff Brandes, Sheriff Gualtieri, etc).
In other news….
On Saturday a group of activists angry about the police shooting deaths of African-Americans Walter Scott and Levall Hall held a protest in front of the federal building in downtown Tampa. While Scott’s case has dominated the news nationally, protesters brought up Hall’s case. He was a 25-year-old mentally ill black man who was fatally shot by police in Miami Gardens back in February.
LGBT activists are calling the Florida House of Representatives’ recent approval of a “conscience protection” measure for private child adoption agencies equivalent to the recent controversy stirred up in Indiana about religious freedom. The sponsor of the bill in the House, Republican Jason Brodeur, penned an op-ed on Friday calling for a truce regarding gay adoption, but activists don’t want to hear about it.
