Morning clicks: run away Rubio, Kos flips on Crist-Meek
It’s a late morning here in ReidReport land. I’m getting ready to head out to Channel 2 to tape a segment of “issues,” but before I go, here’s a bit of what’s going on in the sunshine state:
Rubio on the Run: this Daniel Ruth op-ed on Marco Rubio’s duck and hide response to his credit card and family employment plan with other people’s money is worth it just for all the different ways he messes with Rubio’s political title. On the substance, the bottom line is that Marco is taking a page from the Sarah Palin playbook: when scandal calls, don’t answer the door; hide under the bed and stock the foyer with pre-screened, adoring fans.
Meanwhile, if the problem is politicians treating donor money like their personal slush fund, why is the answer to bring back even more political slush funds?
Here’s something you don’t see every day: the Meek campaign forwarding around a post from the Daily Kos. Read more
Marco Rubio’s bad mojo
A couple of weeks ago, I asked a prominent attorney involved in the case of an elected official who was charged with corruption for using his city-issued credit car for personal expenses, including dinners at Red Lobster with his girlfriend, what the material difference was between that alleged crime (the pol is pleading not guilty) and Marco Rubio using his party-issued card as his personal funds, in contravention to the rules governing the card (it’s supposed to be used for electioneering.) The answer was “none.” It’s all about whether the state attorney (or the IRS) chooses to pursue it in one case versus another. Whether you’re talking public money, or private money, misuse of a corporate, government or party-issued credit card is potentially hazardous to your freedom. Interesting. And so is this, from columnist Fred Grimm, writing in today’s Miami Herald:
A decade ago, Broward County Commissioner Scott Cowan tried to explain away political contributions going to hire relatives for mysterious jobs or to pay for repairs to the family car. His ledger sheet included a number of inexplicable purchases. As if he was using his campaign fund as his personal bank account.
“When looking back on how I handled expenditures . . . it certainly wasn’t the best judgment,” Cowan said, as revelations about his inappropriate spending habits became public. “Everything was legal. But it was poor judgment.”
… Everything was not legal. Cowan’s poor judgment translated into criminal charges. He pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors and served 125 days in jail. His wrecked political career should have sobered other ambitious politicians with a penchant for inscrutable expenditures or hiring relatives to perform amorphous duties.
Well guess who Marco Rubio is blaming for his free spending with a donor-funded party credit card, and for payments to his teenaged relatives (and his wife) for “courier” and other services out of campaign committee money? Read more
Morning clicks: orange is the new bank, Stupak vs the nuns, Charlie advises Kendrick
If it’s Thursday, it must be time for an orange alert! John “moneybags” Boehner had some sage advice for his banker friends when he spoke before an enthusiastic crowd at an American Bankers Association “government relations” (that’s lobbying to you) summit: “don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves.” Yeah, bankers, fight the power! Boehner plans to try and stall Wall Street reform in the House for at least a year.
Well that went well … President Obama finally appeared on one of Fox’s “news” programs … and a hockey game broke out.
Meanwhile, back in the sunshine state, Charlie Crist has some advice for Kendrick Meek that he’s offering purely for effect since he knows Meek won’t take it, and really what’s the point? He’s urging the Miami Democrat to vote against the healthcare bill (as if). He even wrote Kendrick a letter about it! Well, at least it makes Charlie sound more “Republican,” meaning devoid of policy solutions but loyal to the “party of no” strategy, which should please, well … no one who hates Charlie Crist. Good work!
The vote in question will probably happen Sunday, after the 72 hour waiting period Speaker Pelosi has called for following release of the bill’s CBO score. Read more
Is Kendrick Meek running to be … Joe Lieberman?
Kendrick Meek is definitely running to the right, perhaps protecting himself from a general election attempt to paint him as a pinko lefty. And Florida has a large Jewish population, particularly in crucial South Florida, that needs catering to. Maybe that’s why the Meek camp issued this pretty striking statement today that echoes other Democrats who have been (in generally milder terms) taking on the White House for rebuking Israel over settlements, but seems to take it up a notch, AIPAC-style:
“What started off as an internal, domestic disagreement within the Israeli government has turned into an unnecessary international dispute complicated by some undiplomatic language from U.S. administration officials. Opponents of peace, nations and terrorist organizations that wish to do harm to Israel will always seize an opportunity to create a wedge between our nation and Israel. They seek comfort watching these recent events unfold. To give our enemies the false impression that the United States and Israel disagree on fundamental issues within the region sets the peace process back. I urge restraint and a resumption of talks that result in a lasting peace that ensures Israel’s security,” said Meek.
Meek’s statement is strange for a number of reasons. First off, seems to take a harder line than almost any other Democrat who has spoken out on the issue, and most of them are Jewish. Besides Meek, no Democrat has called the dispute “unnecessary,” all have at least acknowledged that Israel deserved criticism for announcing new settlements on the day of the vice president’s visit, (something even Israelis have blasted their government over) and most of the critics have sniped at the administration mostly for its tone, and not the substance. Meanwhile, the two most notable people who are talking up terrorists and enemies seeking “comfort” from the stated position of the President of the United Sates, his Vice President, his Secretary of State, and the senior Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate, not to mention the United Nations, are Sarah Palin and Joe Lieberman. Read more
For Marco Rubio, expensive chickens roosting
There’ll be no more living the political high life for Marco Rubio — basking in the adoration of the eager press corps, crowned as the “Hispanic Obama” and the “Hispanic Ronald Reagan” at the same time … and the answer to the Republican Party’s demographic woes … hailed by tea partiers everywhere and fawned over by Erick Erickson and Jim DeMint, who isn’t at all using him to make himself look hip and relevant in an election year or to set himself up to take Mitch McConnell’s job (okay, the last two things are still happening.) No, friends, the Marco Rubio hot air balloon appears to be coming in for a landing. Read more
The Meek campaign’s ongoing, strange relationship with the news cycle’
When everybody else is talking about healthcare, they’re doing NASCAR … State media fixated on AMEXgate? They hold a conference call with reporters (today) to announce, again, that they’re getting really really close on their petition drive (the one bit of news they did make on the call was that after all of this, they might wind up paying the $10,000 filing fee anyway, in case some of the petitions are challenged by Republicans.) And less than a week after Israel punks the United States by announcing new settlements on the same day Joe Biden arrives to talk peace, prompting even Israel’s closest friends to wonder what they’re thinking, and even as the Obama administration continues to rebuke Bibi Netanyahu and company and even demand a cancellation of the East Jerusalem provocation, Team Meek forwards around an op-ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that is, to say the least, off key. Read more
Rubio’s brand dented with conservatives, Hispanics?
Marco says: "It's my money!" ... only it's not.
I had lunch with a prominent member of South Florida’s Hispanic community not too long ago, who told me, to my surprise, that Marco Rubio has a Cuban problem. On Spanish language radio, apparently (and this person appears on it regularly,) he is often criticized for appearing to deliberately take stands harmful to fellow Latinos just to win over white conservatives, including opposing immigration reform (a priority for Hispanic elected officials), calling Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty grant a mistake, and coming out against counting illegal immigrants in the Census, a strange position that makes xenophobes happy, but which if implemented, would cost Florida billions of dollars.
Indeed, being a black or brown conservative often seems to require making repeated and increasingly vigorous demonstrations of disdain for one’s own ethnic group. Blacks who vehemently oppose affirmative action and Latinos who oppose immigration reform are particularly prized by the right. Clarence Thomas is beloved by white right wingers as much because he is hostile to what they see as the “race hustling” of traditional black leaders as for his Supreme Court rulings (which are just like Tony Scalia’s anyway.) Rubio, by taking hard-right stands on things like immigration, is positioning himself roughly where Tom Tancredo is on issues, which is good for his push-button poll numbers, but which has also hurt him, according to those same (not very sound, but highly media-shiny) polls, with Hispanics, who right now prefer either Charlie Crist or Kendrick Meek, to one of their own. So could Rubio be more properly characterized as the Hispanic Clarence Thomas, rather than the Hispanic Barack Obama? (Thomas’ wife is now a tea partier, so the similarities are growing.)
A piece in the National Journal’s Burn After Reading blog suggests his troubles might be real: Read more
Uh-oh Rubio …
Marco Rubio: It's good to be the speaker.
The latest St. Pete Times/Miami Herald scoopola details Marco Rubio’s lifestyle-padding through what sure looks like a multi-tiered political slush fund. This time, Rubio is tagged for allegedly using his political committees to pay his wife and several members of his family. From the story (which was forwarded around by both the Crist campaign and the Florida Democratic Party, with the former dubbing the story “the Rubio hustle…”): Read more
Kitty discovers the truth about Medicare Part D
Have you noticed how many of Charlie Crist’s friends are suddenly all over TV? Who are the equivalent for Marco Rubio, besides Jim DeMint and the tea party people…? Anyhoo, Florida Temp Senator George LeMieux was just on “Hardball,” and Chuck Todd, sitting in for Chris, stumped him by informing LeMieux, perhaps for the first time, that Medicare Advantage is not Medicare. It’s a private insurance product that gets taxpayer subsidies, so if you cut the subsidies, you’re not cutting Medicare, you’re just giving less money to insurance companies. Cue the “ums…” LeMieux wouldn’t say straight out that Marco Rubio is qualified for the Senate, and he stood by his friend Charlie Crist. Not much other news there, but someone ought to forward Kitty a description of Part D … Best line of the segment: Chris Cillizza: nobody knows Charlie Crist like George LeMieux. He also made the observation that Crist may be struggling without his chief strategist, who is the equivalent of the governor’s Karl Rove. Interesting point …
Charlie Crist’s salty Fox News interview
Maybe the stress of the campaign, and the polls are getting to Charlie Crist. But his interview this morning on Fox was kind of salty. Crist had some audio problems at the top of the interview, and then snapped at the (insert generic blonde Fox News Host here) for interrupting him. For her part, the Fox-y lady kept pressing Crist to explain just how he’d fallen so far behind Marco Rubio, and why he so foolishly accepted that stimulus money that every other governor accepted too, except without the hugging. Well Crist was in no mood for that. He cut her off a couple of times but eventually responded that people haven’t begun to look at Rubio’s record, which apparently is full of nasty tax hikes. Crist ended the interview on an up-note, telling the Fox-y lady how much fun it was to “play with their cameras.”
And just in case Camp Crist doubted that Fox is unfriendly territory, the network has forced Youtube to yank a DNC ad that mocked Marco Rubio for the “back wax” (or whatever he got for $134 at a chichy Miami salon with donor money. But as Media Matters points out, Fox doesn’t always mind political parties using its video: Read more
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