In its seemingly random sports poll released today, Public Policy Polling did sneak in a few poll questions about actual public policy. Though a majority of Americans now support gay marriage, Floridians aren’t quite ready for it. Though, they do, by a large majority, support civil unions for same-sex couple. It…
Not very many people in Florida like Governor Rick Scott, so we really didn’t expect former democratic President Bill Clinton to like the guy much either. While speaking at a conference for young progressive activists in D.C. today, Clinton called out Scott’s effort to strip voting rights from convicted felons…
Over in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry supported a law that would have made TSA agents subject to arrest for pat downs of passengers. That bill ultimately died, but the Libertarian Party of Florida hopes to bring that idea to Florida. Members of the fringe party sent letters to Sheriffs in…
Adam Hasner, the Tea Party favorite in the fledgling fight for the GOP’s 2012 nomination to take on Senator Bill Nelson, sent out a not-so-cherry Fourth of July message to his supporters in which he compared the national debt to Hitler. Apparently a man bent on world domination, widespread warfare and the…
Democrats in Florida have a huge registered voter advantage over Republicans, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at the leadership in Tallahassee and the Republican super majorities in both house of the state legislature. There’s a few reasons for that situation (including the Republican-controlled 2000 redistricting process), but the…
Gov. Rick Scott has seemed to overcome his hesitations about funding Central Florida’s SunRail commuter train program and announced his approval of state funding for the program today. Scott’s first big decision in office was surprisingly killing a federally funded high-speed train project, a move that proved highly unpopular and…
There’s a cancerous strain of political outlook on both sides that views politics as nothing more than a game played by two sides. Somehow the conservative Sunshine State News Service managed to inject that outlook into the results of the Miami-Dade mayoral election, a non-partisan race that pitted two candidates…
Hours after the Hoedown in Hadley Park, Riptide caught up with Mayor Tomas Regalado in Little Haiti to press him on the $400,000 “bribe” Chief Miguel Exposito says he was offered to resign. This time Regalado argued the deal was a perfectly legal severance package — negotiated solely by ex-CFO…
A story that started yesterday with blogger Al Crespo posting a mysterious, voided city check for $200,000 ended with more ammo fed into the raging firefight between the Miami Police Department and City Hall when Chief Miguel Exposito admitted the check was part of a huge payout he was offered…
Bill Nelson is now Florida’s longest serving state-wide elected politician, and yet a surprising amount of Floridians don’t think much of him one way or another. The guy has sat in the Senate for 11 years, and mastered a brand of bland Democratic moderation that doesn’t piss off Republicans too…
By a surprisingly slim margin, Miami-Dade voters have picked Carlos Gimenez to serve as the county’s next mayor. Gimenez received just 51 percent of the vote in the special runoff election triggered by the recall of former mayor Carlos Alvarez. Opponent Julio Robaina has offered his concession.Though it was a…
We don’t believe a guy as politically ambitious as Charlie Crist would be happy for long at an ambulance-chasing law firm. Though, now that he’s left the Republican party there are few clear paths for him to get back into any office. Unless, of course, he becomes a full-fledged Democrat…
Rick Scott wants to be known as the job creation governor, but almost seven months into office he’s become more known for what he’s destroyed, or tried to. After killing Florida’s federally funded high-speed rail program, and reports that he attempted to do away with Citizens Property Insurance, a new…
In a miscalculated move to try and boast public support, Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s website asked his fervent supporters, all five of them, to sign their name to a pre-written letter and send them off to Florida’s newspapers letter to the editor section.Well, at least one fake conservative pundit is…
Concern over a looming budget gap and leadership turmoil has led Moody’s, the bond rating agency, to downgrade its outlook on the City of Miami’s $226 million in obligations from “stable” to “negative,” according to an investor’s report obtained by blogger Al Crespo. The agency also downgraded the city’s tax and…
Up in New York State they’ve finally passed a bill legalizing same sex marriage. Meanwhile, down in Miami-Dade we’ve got a mayoral candidate who can’t even decided if he’s for or against domestic partnership laws and seems to have wildly flip-flopped between stances. Julio Robaina says he believes in the…
So apparently Mike Huckabee reads Riptide, and apparently he thinks we’re just idiots. The former Arkansas Governor-turned-Fox News host had Rick Scott on his program this weekend, and the two discussed Scott’s dismal poll numbers. Huckabee decided to blame the press, and as evidence flashed a Riptide blog post headline…
There’s not many scenarios under which President Obama can win reelection in 2012 without winning Florida (especially considering we’ll have two more electoral votes this time around). New numbers from Public Policy Polling show that while Obama is leading all Republican candidates right now in Florida, he only surpasses the…
It’s worth noting that a man who doesn’t believe a woman has the right to chose what she does with her own body is being supported by a man who brought us such songs as “Dick Almighty” and “The Fuck Shop.” It’s also worth noting that neither Luther Campbell or…
The party that supposedly favors deregulation and keeping the government out of people’s lives passed a state law this year that barred doctors from asking patients about gun ownership. Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill into law, but now a group of thousands of doctors and gun control groups…
Fresh off of its Republican primary poll yesterday, Public Policy Polling, a democratically-aligned polling firm, has released new numbers showing that large numbers of Florida voters are less likely to vote for a Republican presidential candidate in 2012 thanks to the actions of Rick Scott. The poll comes on the…
Social issues have not been a driving force in local Miami-Dade politics for some time, with most voters more concerned with pressing issues like property taxes and budget problems. Today, however, the Christian Family Coalition of South Florida injected a big dose of social conservatism into the race by endorsing…
