Ed Hooper has now received the endorsement of every Oldsmar city elected official in his bid for Florida Senate. Hooper, a retired fire Lieutenant who served on the Clearwater City Council before spending eight years in the Florida House, is seeking to replace term-limited Clearwater Sen. Jack Latvala in 2018.
A new report issued by the Hillsborough County Citizens Advisory Committee identified potential savings in 14 specific areas could save more than $3 billion over the next three decades, which could be spent on transportation, infrastructure and/or tax cuts. The 13-member committee has met twice a month since July analyzing the budget before handing off its list of recommendations to the BOCC last week. “We determined you don’t have to have a sales tax to raise this amount of money,” says Spencer Kass, a member…
Hillsborough Clerk of the Circuit Court Pat Frank has defeated Republican Eric Seidel, 53 percent to 47 percent. That’s with 335 out of 340 precincts reporting. Although the margin was much closer than Frank’s victory over Kevin Beckner in the Democratic primary (where she won by 18 points), the race against Seidel was much easier. That’s because the former Fox-13 consumer reporter decided that he would not adopt the hardball tactics employed by Beckner in his campaign. It helped him…
The last presidential contest I really didn’t pay that much attention to was back in 1980, but I do remember this: I was in high school, and I had the TV on but the sound down when Jimmy Carter came out at around 6:15 PST to announce he was conceding the election. It was pretty early in the evening, but it was obvious Carter wasn’t going to catch up to Ronald Reagan that night. Although Carter wanted to get the misery…
Eric Seidel is hoping his campaign’s strategy of reaching out to independent voters will pay dividends Tuesday night in the Hillsborough County Clerk of the Court’s race. The former Fox-13 consumer reporter became a political candidate for office for the first time this year, running as a Republican against Democratic incumbent Pat Frank. “We knew because of what was happening at the top of the ticket, independents were going to be where it’s at and where the tide has turned, and that’s who…
Early voting commenced in Hillsborough County (and 49 other counties in Florida) on Monday, and by the end of the day, 18,887 voters had turned up at the polls, according to Supervisor of Elections Craig Lattimer. On Tuesday, USA Today reported Hillsborough County is one of the premier bellwether areas of the country when it comes to electing a president. Hillsborough has picked the winner in 19 of the last 20 presidential elections, and the Hillary Clinton campaign is pulling out all the stops this…
Forget about Marco Rubio in 2020, what about Rick Scott? Troy Kinsey from Bay News 9 reports that “some GOP operatives are floating him as a potential presidential contender in 2020, should Trump lose in November.” Kinsey then quotes all of one lone such operative in his story. But it does make for a good headline. Now, what about Marco Rubio? The Florida lawmaker made news this week when he declared in his debate against Patrick Murphy, “I’m going to serve in the Senate for the next six years, God…
