Brave Floridians of every stripe of ignorance went to the polls last November and banned any practical, legal recognition of gay relationship forever… or at least until society evolves beyond its prejudices, which history shows it tends to do. The gays can marry in Iowa and Vermont now, so it’s…
The right wing was eager to paint Obama as some sort of arugula-eating hippie elitist with immaculate, highfalutin taste that would turn off the common man. Silently, Riptide wished this was true. Turns out that if Obama’s TV habits are any indication, he has the taste of your regular bro…
Good news everyone! Particularly-voiced character actor and all around bad-ass Charles Bronson has decided to reemerge from the grave and run for governor of our fair state should Charlie Crist decide to run for senate! Hold on, I’m getting some clarification from the dedicated 40 person Riptide newsroom. Ok. Apparently,…
Some geniuses in Miami Beach want to rebrand two areas in the city as “The French Quarter” (Normandy isles shopping district) and “The District” (shops along Collins near 8th ave). Problem is that one is already associated with various areas of world cities, while the other is entirely bland and…
The number of horrible mass shootings nationally in the past few weeks has been astoundingly sad. Incidents in Miami alone have taken the lives of a dozen people in the past few weeks. I don’t know if you can explain something like this. Blaming it on the economy, as it…
I’m not immediately sure how this is useful, but there’s a new website for people in Tallahassee to get excited over. It’s called the Florida Gaggle, and its main feature is that it aggregates the Twitter feeds from politicians, politicos, and reporters. How exciting! It also aggregates the same five or…
Remember when John McCain used to be the “cool Republican”? Which is about as cool as being a “cool dad,” but he was genial enough. Then things happened (you betcha) and he has been bitter about it ever sense. Last month he was at a meeting with Hispanic business leaders…
If Charlie Crist does not run for Senate, Marco Rubio is officially the luckiest man on Earth. Rep. Connie Mack IV (né Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV), who pulled in decent numbers during early polling mainly because he shares a name with his father, former Sen. Connie Mack III, has decided…
These dang Florida Democrats can’t seem to run for Senate without some sort of campaign gimmick. Lawton Chiles had his walk, Bob Graham had working days, and Dan Gelber is undertaking 100 days of public service. Rep. Kendrick Meek might be leading in fundraising, but he is totally losing in…
Awkward Republican National Committee Chairmen Michael Steele is coming to Miami Monday! Hooray! If you’re the kind of person who likes to protest the GOP, Steele is probably the best thing that could have happened to that party. It hasn’t been announced exactly where Steele will be, but Riptide has…
Remember when St. Pete Times columnist Howard Toxler wanted the state university system’s next chancellor to be “a real (bleep)”? Basically he wanted someone with name recognition who couldn’t be easily pushed around by legislators. Fat chance at that. The Board of Governors hired a search firm from Texas, and…
For a man who has held so many government positions, Mel Martinez never seemed too gung-ho about public service. As he put it in his book, A Sense of Belonging, politics, “sort of sneaked up and tapped me softly on the shoulder.” But after all these years he would like…
It has been over eight years now since Florida changed the history of the world forever by not being able to count votes correctly, and we have been apologizing for it ever sense. I mean, we weren’t sorry enough to not vote for Bush in 2004, and Broward County wasn’t…
Both Democratic U.S. Senate candidates announced their fundraising haul for the first quarter of 2009 today. Rep. Kendrick Meek, who benefited from a few fundraising appearances by none other than Bill Clinton, raked in $1.49 million. That’s roughly on track with other early, non-incumbent front runners from past election cycles…
The mainstream media and the federal government have comfortable slots on the top ten list of things Republican hate. It seems, for now at least, the Republicans in Tallahassee hate the government a little more. Republican state Sen. Ronda Storms was supporting a bill that would no longer require local…
You would think the Republican party would start trying to find ways to be a more inclusive group. Instead, operating under the assumption that when the democrats make one major screw up, voters will have only one choice to turn to: a newly, ideologically pure Republican party. Now, The Tampa…
Charlie Crist may be his party’s most gung-ho supporter of Obama’s stimulus plan, but not all Republicans in Tallahassee are quite as excited. Congressional leaders may reject a plan to widen unemployment benefits, because they fear it could increase taxes on businesses, and cost the State more in the long…
The current political scandal involving a Republican spending money on things involves Bill McCollum’s anti-pedophile PSAs. Apparently the Attorney General spent $550 on makeup for the ad! Gasp! Here (via the Buzz) is “yuk yuk yuk” YouTube video driving the point home. Men in makeup for the purposes of lighting!…
It seemed like a foregone conclusion just a few months back that Gov. Charlie Crist would run for a relatively easy re-election. Then in November, the Republicans in Washington got their asses handed to them, and whenever Minnesota decides to get its shit together, the Democrats in the Senate will…
When news broke that Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp had a pricey travel habit footed by taxpayers, we thought it was suspicious it came only a few weeks after rumors began circulating that Gov. Charlie Crist might be thinking of resigning to run for Senate in 2010, leaving the governor’s mansion to…
The Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau has been following a proposed porn tax with quite some fervor lately, but the State Legislators can’t seem to talk about the proposal with a straight face. Republican Sen. Carey Baker said he’d heard someone throw out the idea of an extra tax on porn, and…
Florida’s University Chancellor Mark Rosenberg resigned last fall, and returned to FIU where he previously served as provost. John Delaney, President of the University of North Florida is serving in the interim, but the hunt is on for the full time replacement. Rosenberg’s tenure was marked with strife with the legislature…
