Tag Archive for congress

Adams conferences with Bloggers, talks Palin, Washington and Mica

July 21, 2012 Uncategorized 2 comments

Earlier this week, Congresswoman Sandy Adams held a conference call with bloggers from right here in Orlando, to all the way out in California. Just the latest move in her primary contest with John Mica that has garnered national attention.

Adams talked about her recent nod from former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin, the current conditions in the nation’s capital, and some eye opening remarks about her opponent Mica. However, the remark that stuck out from the entire call wasn’t spoken by Adams but her spokesperson, and didn’t have any edgy rhetoric attached to it.

“This didn’t have to happen”

No truer words have been spoken in this entire campaign.

The debate over who should run well has been one of the biggest issues in this primary fight that will see Central Florida Republicans lose a well-liked lawmaker in Washington. Adams told bloggers her side of the argument and mentioned that Mica was turning his back on thousands of constituents he previously represented by running against Adams.

She also wanted voters to know that all of Mica’s claims to bringing money back to the state neglect to mention that it’s rerouted tax payer dollars that’s being spent with a large deficit for his pet projects.

The most startling talking point during this call were the accusations of personal threats made to Adams supporters and the Congresswoman herself. “I’m a former Law Enforcement office. I know a threat when I see one”.

In fairness, I’ll ask the Mica campaign to reply. Both Lawmakers are terrific, I wish we could keep both lawmakers.

Still, voters in the 7th will have to make the decision in a little less than a month from now and no matter who wins. We all lose.

“This didn’t need to happen”

Congresswoman Adams took time out from her campaign to speak with bloggers earlier this week.

Demings attacks Webster for Fundraising in Key Largo

March 22, 2012 Uncategorized 3 comments

You wouldn’t take Val Demings as the attack first type but, after weeks of sending out emails attacking Republicans as a whole, she finally took a shot directly at her opponent, Congressman Dan Webster and it wasn’t an email message or quote in the newspaper, it’s a full blown internet attack ad. Take a look.

Tries to be funny but uses ugly footage from those derailed town hall meetings last year. I can’t see why her campaign would want to be associated with those. It also uses footage from a CBS news report but leaves out the segment of the report that concedes that President Obama also makes multiple fundraising stops.

Going negative on Dan Webster isn’t a very good idea. Webster ran a clean campaign in 2010, while a former representative used some creative editing in some of his ads too.

The speech footage in that ad was sliced and diced in the editing room and the truth checkers caught on to it. Alan Grayson’s campaign imploded and Webster cruised to victory.

There is also a question of the message behind the Demings ad. It accuses Webster of giving access to special interest and that’s not exactly fair either. Val Demings already has lobbyist, powerplayers, and big business all over her campaign reports.

If you’re going to call it, call it both ways.

Listen, I’m not a Dan Webster superfan (drastically different personalities) but the ad is not funny, isn’t original, and uses heavily edited news footage.

If you're going after a candidate for fundraising then you're going to be making a lot of ads.

Attacking doesn’t look good on Val Demings (the Limbaugh fundraising push was odd). This ad has political operative fingerprints all over it. She needs to stick to the issues and rally her base.

For now, let’s look at a more accurate version of what a Dan Webster fishing trip is really like.

Allen West Issues Verbal Smackdown to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

July 20, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

Check this out….

“Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up.”

-Congressman Alan West in an email to Congresswoman and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

If you’re not familiar with any of these two Reps from South Florida, this behavior is nothing new. These two fireballers are right at home doing sort of thing on the hill, on television, or in front of supporters. If faced with only 10 minutes before the end of the world, they would spend it on cable TV shredding the opposite party.

To have them break the political 4th wall like this by going directly at each other is interesting. This office communication was sent with the intention of “putting someone in check”, filled with language designed to push one off of his or her perch. West goes on to add in his email “that you are not a Lady” and “shall not be afforded due respect from me!”

Are those exclamation points? In an email to a colleague? How often do we shout in written communication with language meant to maim one’s professional focus and bearing?

What set this off? Cut, Cap and Balance which is a plan supported by many conservatives and includes a balanced budget amendment like the one we have here in Florida. Wasserman-Schultz didn’t like it and issued this speech on the house floor, after West had just finished voicing his support….

Okay guys, check it… Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is an awful representative for the Democratic Party. Why she was assigned to chair the DNC? I don’t know but, she’s got issues and there are so many other liberal members of the House that can communicate better than this lady.

Col. Alan West is an old Army guy like me. Now, I was an enlisted guy so, I actually did the work while, he sat in the tent and drank coffee but, the fact that he sent the email doesn’t surprise me. We confront our enemies face to face and look them in the eyes. One could believe this communication exercised restraint. Lord knows what this email would have looked like if Wasserman-Schultz was a guy! The fact that he got channeled Churchill and insulted a woman didn’t surprise me either.

Lady Astor to Churchill “Winston, if you were my husband I would flavour your coffee with poison”
Churchill: “Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it”

If your an everyday, moderate voter, you shouldn’t be fans of either of these two but, Alan West was right. If you’ve got something to say about someone say it to their face and not after they’ve left the room. How did West handle it? Well, I’ll leave you with that to decide.

Does this look like someone who doesn't confront his critics?

Lemieux Money Winner for the Quarter, Craig Miller enters Senate Race

July 11, 2011 Uncategorized One comment

George Lemieux banks 950K:
Politicians running for office, are often compared to stock on Wall St. investors put their money in places they feel the most confident.

This quarter, they felt confident in former Senator George Lemieux.

Lemieux announced that he brought in over 950,000 dollars this quarter, this number exceeds the total of State Senate President, the faux pas prone Mike Haridopolos. He managed to bring in 900k after a huge first quarter. The other major candidate, Adam Hasner brought in 560k, who is exceeding totals brought in by Marco Rubio at this point during his campaign.

Craig Miller is running for Senate:

Who would attack a widow and mother of three on the anniversary of her husband’s death?

Who would do a drive by at an opponent’s rally and litter a church with his flyers, knowing full well that he would not gain one vote?

That would be this guy….

Former Ruth Chris Boss, Craig Miller

I’ve got product knowledge of Craig Miller and his behavior during the 2010 D24 Congressional race was a sad display of character from someone seeking public service.

Anyhow, he’s in, he’s got money, and he’ll get invites to debates and major events.

This along with Alan Grayson and Val Demings announcing today, their intentions to run for the House of Representatives, it’s safe to say.

It’s almost game time.

Alan Grayson and Val Demings are running for Congress

July 11, 2011 Uncategorized 6 comments

Like a villain from a bad action movie…..He’s baaaack

The hyper partisan, “Die Quickly”, former Congressman, Alan Grayson has announced that he will run for Congress in 2012. There is no word of which district he will run in, with re-districting in play it’s anybody’s guess, which seat he’ll go after.

He’s not the only one though, and the other announcement could be a potential primary opponent for Grayson.

Former Orlando Police Chief Val Demings has announced that she will also run for Congress in 2012. Like Grayson, she has also not announced which district she will run in.

Definitely more to come soon.

Grayson's annoucement will energize the far left

Val Demings will also be seeking election to the House, next year..

OPD Chief Val Demings Retires …Run for Office next?

May 4, 2011 Uncategorized 5 comments

Tuesday afternoon, Orlando Police Chief Val Demmings retired. OPD’s first female police chief can say she’s accomplished a lot in her 27 years. Violent crime went down on her watch (during a massive recession), she’s stood at the podium and defended her officers admirably, and from someone who’s actually watched the crime disappear from his neighborhood, community outreach has been awesome.

She’s only 54, too young to pack it in and take up boring hobbies.

It broke on the Twitterverse yesterday, that she might run for office. That’s a very real possibility. She even asked the media on hand for suggestions. Well, let’s take a look at her options.

A few days back, the Orlando Sentinel wrote about possible high profile races, that would happen to be in the same districts that Demings would make a potential run at. So, we’ll hypothetically qualify her in those primaries.

TBD Awarded Congressional Seat: Alan Grayson and Gary Siplin in the same primary? Droopy Drawers vs. Die Quickly? The non-sense in that primary would be epic and after redistricting the new seat might make that happen. Demings might bring a rational voice to the conversation but, Democrats want Grayson back in Washington badly and he’s one of the most gifted fundraisers in the state. Siplin is far more vulnerable with his obsession of baggy pants, but Val Demings would be better off staying as far away from this circus, as possible.

FL. Senate District 19: Gary Siplin’s termed out and so far his wife Victoria Siplin, and also termed out State Rep. Geraldine Thompson have filed to run for it. There is some static over Victoria Siplin’s business dealings, and it can be argued that Thompson has been ineffective working with the Republican super majority in Tallahassee. Demings would fare much better in this race.

TBD FL House seat: Re-districting plays a role here, but at the time of this post no one has filed to run for termed out Rep. Thompson’s seat. It’s early and a name from the past could show up, but this is probably Val Deming’s best shot.

After watching the TV coverage, I saw the look she gave Fox 35′s Mike Syan after she was asked about running, and I knew it. Paired with her reply, it’s the coy kind of response you give someone when, you don’t want to spoil a surprise.

It’s my prediction, that Val Demings will eventually run for office, and if she picks the right race, she’ll win.

It would be a safe bet to say she would be awarded the Law Enforcement Endorsements

Democrats on the offensive in Central Florida this week.

April 29, 2011 Uncategorized No comments

Daniel Webster, Allen West, Sandy Adams, they’re all conservative elected members of the House of Representatives and this week, they’ve all been under attack at their town halls and listening sessions.

Liberals attending their elected representatives forums, and disrupting presentations concerning the current Paul Ryan budget being debated in Washington. An organized group will stand up minutes into the town hall or meeting and start screaming at their lawmakers. On several occasions the police have had to intervene and even arrests one of the out of control activists.

The first news making conflict in the blitzkrieg like initiative was an ambush during, the last stop on a tour of town halls for D-8 Rep. Dan Webster. Planted activists in the audience began to shout down at the congressman just minutes after he started. Webster supporters in attendance started shouting back and before you knew it police had to get involved and tell everyone to act like adults.

The next day, down in South Florida, it was Allen West that had to deal with out of control activists planted in his audience determined, on derailing the town hall. “It’s a town hall” the woman kept shouting throughout the presentation. She was finally arrested.

That same day, later in the evening during a listening session Sandy Adams had to deal with another outburst during the speaking portion of her event. There are currently plans from liberal groups to ambush her next listening session, scheduled this weekend.

In a more creative (and peaceful) protests. Activists dressed up as zombies and once again went after Daniel Webster, this time outside of his district office in Winter Garden, Fl. Protesters held up “Don’t work us till we die” signs.

Obviously, if you’re one of my liberal readers, you’ve got to be completely psyched at all of this activity, but my concerns are how close some of events have come to violence.

One guy shouts, another guy shouts back, one takes a step closer and sticks a finger in the other guy’s face. A shove here, a thrown punch there and we’ve got a riot on our hands. A terrible tragedy considering we’re all on the same side.

This of course, is nothing new. The Tea Party ran a successful campaign of protests outside of lawmakers supporting Barack Obama’s health care plan, and a lot of those guys aren’t in office anymore. My concerns are preventing violence and keeping a rational discussion in play.

Is that too much to ask?

How are they doing? Part I: Congresswoman Sandy Adams

March 16, 2011 Uncategorized No comments

Welcome to the first part in the “How are they doing?” series that I’ll be running over the next couple of weeks. Today we’re gonna start with a lawmaker that has quietly been working hard for the people in her district. She hasn’t been on television much, but she has been busy.

Congresswoman Sandy Adams (R) FL-D24

The thing that was probably the most frustrating about her predecessor was her availability. I’m at a lot of political events and I only saw Suzanne Kosmas once. Once! That hasn’t been the case with Rep. Adams. Since she was elected back in November, I’ve seen Sandy Adams addressing constituents 4 times. In person. I say that because a lot of politicians hide behind telephone and twitter townhalls. That’s not good constituent outreach.

Sandy Adams has stood with the party on all fiscal and judiciary legislation, while still addressing concerns on issues that effect all Floridians such as NASA, and the fishing industry.

She participated in the State of the Union “Date Night” following the tragedy in Tuscon, demonstrating unity during difficult time.

I suppose the only gripe I can come up with Rep. Adams so far, is that her website isn’t updated and there is some frustration that you can feel through news releases put out by her staff. She’s only been there two months but, down the line I would like to see her sponsor some hard legislation. If that’s all I have to complain about, then she’s doing a pretty decent job.

Grade: B

Rep. Adams has remained visible in the community since taking office.

A New Attitude in Washington? We’ll see…

January 17, 2011 Uncategorized No comments

It’s good to be back. I’ve had the chance to work on some really great projects over the last couple of days and finally have some time to put together a post.

Well last week brought up an emotional memorial service for the victims of the tragic shootings in Tuscon, Sarah Palin’s communications team setting her up for failure and a promise for a new start in Washington. I’ll hit up each of these topics in order.

President Obama’s Tuscon Memorial Speech:I thought it was terrific. The President has never had a problem holding a room, he’s a great speaker. I think the key issue involved with the critics of his speech was the cheers from the crowd at a memorial. Yeah, it was odd, but events like those take on the personality of the crowd and the energy they give out. Obama could have selected a more somber message, but the country needed strength from it’s leader, and that’s what they got.

The crowd reaction was uncomfortable, but the President's speech was on point

Palin’s people let her down:The public often has to be reminded that politicians and celebrities seldom write their own stuff. They depend on communication and public relations professionals to write speeches for them. Rule #1 when writing speeches and statements if you don’t know what something means, then don’t use it!Wow! what a goof. Now, a lot of my colleagues were buzzing on the web that the speech was indeed the right call. If she wants to be President, then she needs to act like one. The Video addressing the cross-hairs on Representative Gabrielle Gifford’s districts was necessary. We all know those cross-hairs had nothing to do with the violence of a mentally deranged killer. That being said, what a clumsy and ridiculous error by Sarah Palin’s team.

Sarah Palin needs to fire her team, hire a new team and the first order of business by her new team is a press release on how she fired the old team.

Palin's team let her down on what could have been an effective message

A word of caution to all of you public speakers. A combination of sharp and violent words are often very potent to keeping your audience interested, just make sure you Google that combination first.

A New Attitude in Washington: The terrible shooting in Tuscon has some, on both sides of the aisle promising a new era of communicating in Washington.

That and a Chicago Cubs World Series Championship. (they haven’t won one in 103 years)

This is very encouraging, but with debates and votes over repealing health care, it doesn’t inspire much confidence. Some of the members of Congress are just hard-wired to dislike the opposite of party. They can’t control their negative attitudes towards their political opposites anymore than they can control breathing or swallowing.

I’m one of the biggest fans of bi-partisanship, I find that our country is at it’s strongest when we put people first and I want to believe our lawmakers, I really do. We are going to have to do more to make it permanent, then just sit together during the State of the Union address.

Don’t just tell us, show us….

Have a great week guys…

A New Attitude in Washington? We'll see…

January 17, 2011 Uncategorized No comments

It’s good to be back. I’ve had the chance to work on some really great projects over the last couple of days and finally have some time to put together a post.

Well last week brought up an emotional memorial service for the victims of the tragic shootings in Tuscon, Sarah Palin’s communications team setting her up for failure and a promise for a new start in Washington. I’ll hit up each of these topics in order.

President Obama’s Tuscon Memorial Speech:I thought it was terrific. The President has never had a problem holding a room, he’s a great speaker. I think the key issue involved with the critics of his speech was the cheers from the crowd at a memorial. Yeah, it was odd, but events like those take on the personality of the crowd and the energy they give out. Obama could have selected a more somber message, but the country needed strength from it’s leader, and that’s what they got.

The crowd reaction was uncomfortable, but the President's speech was on point

Palin’s people let her down:The public often has to be reminded that politicians and celebrities seldom write their own stuff. They depend on communication and public relations professionals to write speeches for them. Rule #1 when writing speeches and statements if you don’t know what something means, then don’t use it!Wow! what a goof. Now, a lot of my colleagues were buzzing on the web that the speech was indeed the right call. If she wants to be President, then she needs to act like one. The Video addressing the cross-hairs on Representative Gabrielle Gifford’s districts was necessary. We all know those cross-hairs had nothing to do with the violence of a mentally deranged killer. That being said, what a clumsy and ridiculous error by Sarah Palin’s team.

Sarah Palin needs to fire her team, hire a new team and the first order of business by her new team is a press release on how she fired the old team.

Palin's team let her down on what could have been an effective message

A word of caution to all of you public speakers. A combination of sharp and violent words are often very potent to keeping your audience interested, just make sure you Google that combination first.

A New Attitude in Washington: The terrible shooting in Tuscon has some, on both sides of the aisle promising a new era of communicating in Washington.

That and a Chicago Cubs World Series Championship. (they haven’t won one in 103 years)

This is very encouraging, but with debates and votes over repealing health care, it doesn’t inspire much confidence. Some of the members of Congress are just hard-wired to dislike the opposite of party. They can’t control their negative attitudes towards their political opposites anymore than they can control breathing or swallowing.

I’m one of the biggest fans of bi-partisanship, I find that our country is at it’s strongest when we put people first and I want to believe our lawmakers, I really do. We are going to have to do more to make it permanent, then just sit together during the State of the Union address.

Don’t just tell us, show us….

Have a great week guys…

« Older Entries