Florida Agenda

By Sandy Steen

The upcoming national elections are a dead-serious choice for all gay people who want a job-producing economy that insures middle class affluence and upward mobility. Since Barack Obama’s historic election that promised “Hope and Change,” we have witnessed nightmarish results that create despair and a sense of futility for much of the gay community.

Gas prices have doubled and unemployment rates are up three percent; leaving millions of gay people almost helpless. Median incomes—if you even have a job—have dropped $3,000 to 5,000 per worker.

According to the Sun Sentinel, unemployment in Broward is over 8 percent; in Palm Beach County, it is over 10 percent.

Home foreclosures are at an all time high—which is devastating to a Florida gay community that historically distinguishes itself by improving dilapidated neighborhoods, and excelling in interior design and landscape architecture.

Gay newspapers and Websites relentlessly inveigle their readers into believing it is all George W. Bush’s fault, and focus on the mirage of hyper-homophobia in our culture. This is unethical journalistic rhetoric, and probably leads to an epidemic of depression among many gay people. Since 2010, I witness many “out and open” gay people and couples working as volunteers for such Republican candidates as Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti, congressional candidates Karen Harrington and Allen West, state Senate candidate Ellyn Bogdanoff, Scott Herman—a gay, disabled veteran running for state representative—and both Connie Mack and Marco Rubio as U.S. Senators.

In 2010, exit polls revealed that nearly 50 percent of gay voters voted Republican, slightly more than for Democrats. Now that’s “Hope and Change” we need to recognize and appreciate if we truly celebrate diversity.

To our economy’s detriment, Obama gambled over $5 trillion of borrowed money from China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, only to achieve a recovery that is the weakest in U.S. history. He promotes class warfare and excessive government dependence that in no way compares to the tremendous economic expansions ignited by John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, all of whom aggressively reduced taxes on income and in vestment. Barack Obama lost his luster because of little insight into how to make America competitive in a global economy. Our chief competitor during this century, China, signed 25 free trade pacts with other nations, and another 10 are in the works. Meanwhile, the U.S. signed only three.

Obama’s foreign policy is spinning horrifically out of control, with the wave of murderous terrorist attacks and violent demonstrations erupting across the Arab/Islamic world—a severe setback to the region’s democratic movements that tried to establish pluralistic opportunities for Arab gay people.

Mitt Romney offers a plan that will reinvigorate our economy and create at least 12 million new jobs in the next four years. He will save our deeply troubled Medicare and Social Security programs for our gay senior citizens. And he will stop the thoughtless foreign borrowing that has enchained every American into debt and despair for generations. Romney will help our entrepreneurial class create more jobs, and taxpayers.

Gay Americans are exceptionally capable and patriotic workers: They deserve the best America they can get in return for their dreams and ambitions. Let’s vote for Mitt Romney, along with Connie Mack for the U.S. Senate, and all other reform Republican candidates in Florida.

Sandy Steen is Vice President of the Broward Log Cabin Republicans and a former Mayor of Wilton Manors.

CLIFF DUNN

In recent months my boyfriend has made me a fan of the “zombie” genre of horror movies. Believe me when I say, some of the more-dubious fare is well-labeled as “horror.” (Ever the snob, I prefer more “realistic” offerings, like the AMC cable network’s compelling and dramatic “The Walking Dead” series to some of the grosser, “meat”-and-potatoes productions of George Romero and his homagists.)

We often joke that if the other was to be bitten (or by some other means zombified), each would “mercifully” put the other out of his misery, with an ax, a shotgun, or whatever traditionally antiundead ordnance happened to be lying around. That’s why I listened with some amusement last week when he told me—with absolute certainty—that if we found ourselves marooned on a desert island, or lost in the frozen arctic, or otherwise in desperate straits and running out of supplies and comestibles, he was sure that I would eat him.

He said this in a tone that betrayed sleep deprivation, yes, but also surprise and disappointment mixed with an accusatory tone driven by his “discovery”—as if, having experienced the “truth” of this revelation, he would make me pay for it.

This pillow talk became more relevant when I posted something on Facebook over the weekend that was meant to garner laughter, but instead brought out the “ugly” in a friend-of-a-friend. The actor Samuel L. Jackson has lent his talent to a pro-Obama parody in which he harangues a middle class family to “Wake the F*** up!” and support the president in November. I had (and still have) no clue what my friend’s political persuasions might be, but we share a similar sense of what’s funny, so I thought he would get the humor. (WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW)

To be on the safe side—this is Facebook we’re talking about, after all, and not everyone who posts has taken their medication this morning—I added a disclaimer to the effect that, whatever your individual political beliefs, the video was funny and worth a gander. Less than a minute later—without having had the time to open the video file, much less listen to Jackson’s comedic rant—one of my friend’s friends commented that I was an “Obama Zombie.”

Clearly this person had mistaken the intent of my post, which hadn’t been meant to promote any candidate, belief, or cause—other than to stimulate the cracking of a smile, for crying out loud. But the exchange that ensued showed that—Transactional Analysis games notwithstanding—this person was determined to be “victimized” by me, whom he perceived to be a threat to him, his politics, and his worldview. At that point, I was more than happy to oblige.

So much of the national dialog these past several months has been geared up to playing the game of “gotcha” and similar efforts to be “right” rather than be helpful, that an entire industry of fact-checkers has produced a subgenre of media, with such now-familiar names as FactCheck.org and PolitiFact churning out ever-increasing examples of both sides in the presidential election playing fast and loose with the facts (never mind the “truth”).

For me, the worst part of being labeled an “Obama Zombie” (other than the assumption that I would end up one of the walking dead, something that galls my inner fanboy to no end) is that the numbskull who so labeled me had no idea who I support or don’t support, but that by my “signing off ” on the Samuel L. Jackson video I am—at best— helping to promote a pro-Obama message, and—at worst—I am actually going to vote for the— what? Muslim? Foreign national? (African American? Gay-lover?) Who’s the real zombie here?

CLIFF DUNN

This week, I took the arguably drastic step of “de-friending” some people on Facebook who I felt had taken the whole “post whatever is on your mind” thing a bit too far. (I have seen some doozies, believe me, including someone who, moments before I forever “blocked” them, had posted an image of their most recent—I am not making this up—bowel movement.)

I’m all in favor of free speech and free expression, which is convenient, since I’m a writer by trade and my boyfriend is a talented sketch artist, but there’s a time and a place for everything, including bowel movements. This isn’t to say that I don’t support your “right” to broadcast your bodily functions, just not while my laptop is open to that page (the reason I likewise support Facebook’s right to remove particularly egregious violators).

In the case of this past week, it was the irresponsible use of free speech that caused me—with sincere regret—to “block” these individuals, at least until the Cessation of Hostilities (in this case, November 7, the day after the general election).

The angry political rhetoric of this year’s Silly Season (so-called because apparently there is nothing too ridiculous, unfathomable, or out-of-bounds about any given candidate or cause that some— uh, fellow citizen wouldn’t give credence to: Obama is a Muslim. Obama is a foreigner. Obama is a communist. (Or, as Hank Williams, Jr. so eloquently put it, “We’ve got a Muslim for a President who hates cowboys, hates cowgirls, hates fishing, hates farming, loves gays, and we hate him!”)

“Collectively, these hatemongers form a global industry of outrage, working feverishly to give and take offense, frequently over religion, and to ignite the combustible mix of ignorance and suspicion that exists,” said an article in Time last week. Interestingly, the writer was speaking about the powder keg of the Middle East, in an analysis of the causes of the rioting that led to the death in Libya of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. But he could just as easily been referring to the loutish and loud who are every bit as hateful as the extremists they are decrying.

Honestly, I am a patriot who loves my country and who believes— without the flurry and flourish of rattling sabers or beating breasts— that America is an exceptional country, because of its people and the principles and values for which we at least think we believe we stand. But I would—I’m serious—be challenged as to whom I would call a greater enemy to American values: Rush Limbaugh, or some ignorant teenager learning how to hate the U.S. in a Muslim madrasa. Neither of these types shares anything of my own personal feelings for my country or countrymen, and each (I am pretty certain) thinks in his own way that the world would be a better place without me.

A friend recently referred to the members of the Occupy Wall Street movement as “traitors.” I find this sort of anachronistic speech amusing in my own paternalistic way—until I realize this is the same rhetoric that was voiced against Jews in some of the most “enlightened” places in the world, including Paris, Vienna, London, and Washington, D.C., through the modern era. How can a free citizen in a nation of laws that protects the right of assembly and the right of expression be considered a “traitor?”

I take comfort that this kind of dangerous rhetoric has been preached and practiced in the Republic since its inception, with Jeffersonians accusing Washington (the actual George, in this case) of being pro-English and anti- American, and Hamiltonians and Adamsites in turn calling Jeffersonians the worst name they could think of: “Democrats” (the word had a different context in early-19th Century, post-French Revolution America, although Rush, Sean Hannity, and Company are having just as much fun with it).

My dislike of Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and the Bloviating Class (which doesn’t translate to a disdain for commentator Bill O’Reilly, incidentally, because he dislikes the hypocrisy against Obama as much as I do) often takes the form of imagining them as my “opponents” in some of the mindless video games my boyfriend and I sometimes play while we’re cooking (“Bloons Tower Defense,” anyone?), watching them explode in a whirl of hot air—and hotter gas—when my game avatar “pops” a balloon opponent.

A part of me thinks it’s not in some of the mindless video games my boyfriend and I sometimes play while we’re cooking (“Bloons Tower
Defense,” anyone?), watching them explode in a whirl of hot air—and hotter gas—when my game avatar “pops” a balloon opponent. A part of me thinks it’s not very “patriotic” of me to imagine my fellow countrymen in such straits, but another part recognizes that in today’s political climate, it  is very “American.”

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS – The hypothetical election of U.S. House candidate Richard Tisei would be a collision of “firsts.” Tisei would be the first Massachusetts Republican elected to the U.S. House in 15 years. He would also be the first openly-gay Republican elected to a term in Congress.

A family scandal surrounding the incumbent, U.S. Rep. John Tierney, a Democrat, gives Republicans their first solid-shot at the House seat, which represents the state’s 6th congressional district. Tierney’s wife has pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting an illegal gambling operation run by her brothers, one of whom was convicted this summer of racketeering; the other is now a fugitive from justice. Both men claim that Tierney was aware of their illegal activities.

Tisei, who has served 26 years in the state legislature, including a stint as Senate minority leader, told NPR, “When Gov. Romney was here, I voted with him half the time, and I voted against him half the time,” adding, “I have no problem working with Nancy Pelosi. Just because she’s in the opposition, I’m not gonna poke her in the eye.” Despite that bipartisan language, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner held a fundraiser for Tisei, and the National Republican Congressional Committee has delivered close to $1 million for a TV ad campaign that targets Tierney.

By JOE HARRIS

In November, voters in four states will be asked to make permanent— more or less—their jurisdictions’ treatment of marriage equality (or reasonable facsimiles thereof). Ballot initiatives in Maryland and Washington will determine whether marriage equality laws signed this year will stay on the books. In Maine, voters will decide once and for all, they presume, whether to allow gay marriage back into the Pine Tree State (where it was already signed into law—and overturned at the ballot box—in 2009). And in Minnesota, a constitutional amendment would enshrine marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

The Maine Event

AUGUSTA, MAINE – In 2009, state lawmakers enacted marriage equality, but it was overturned in the voting booth. Supporters of ballot Question 1 want to reinstate same-sex marriage. Both they and their opponents criticized the wording of the ballot question (“Do you want to allow same-sex couples to marry?”) as being too simplistic. Although Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, has been silent about his position on the issue, in May he criticized the teachers’ union for endorsing it, and later vetoed the union’s pay bill. Polls suggest that most voters (58 percent) support the marriage equality referendum.

Freedom to Marry in the Free State?

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND – Supporters hope to pass an initiative repealing the state’s Civil Marriage Protection Act, which was enacted earlier this year in support of marriage equality. Survey data shows strong support for same-sex marriage in Maryland.

The Veep, the General, and the Gays

ST PAUL, MINNESOTA – Although gay marriage isn’t legal there, Republican lawmakers and conservative activists support a constitutional amendment to prohibit it from ever rearing its head in the North Star State. The ballot measure asks, “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?” (Republicans want you to answer, “Yes.”)

The question’s opponents include former Vice President Walter Mondale (D-MN), Fortune 500 corporation (and Minnesota-based) General Mills, Thomson Reuters, Target, and U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN).

Ever-Pink in the Evergreen State?

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON- The state’s Referendum 74 would repeal the marriage equality law signed in February by Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat. The referendum question asks voters to approve or reject the law, which “allows same-sex couples to marry, applies marriage laws without regard to gender, and specifies that laws using gender specific terms like husband and wife include same-sex spouses.”

The law also says that “After 2014, existing domestic partnerships are converted to marriages, except for seniors. It preserves the right of clergy or religious organizations to refuse to perform or recognize any marriage or accommodate wedding ceremonies. The bill does not affect licensing of religious organizations providing adoption, foster-care, or child placement.”

Major supporters of Washington state marriage equality include Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft, Nike, and Starbucks.

By JARRETT TERRILL

(Photo: Courtesy WMXDESIGN)

Paul Ryan is really something to look at, isn’t he? On the rare occasion that he smiles, it’s like heaven has just opened up before you. His square jawline, small ears, and light eyes are the stuff that we seek in models for gay magazines. He’s got that whole Abercrombie-meets-Bass Pro Shops thing going on that I find adorable.

Just looking at Paul Ryan gives me a sort of “tingle” that even Chris Mathews could never understand. I become disoriented and light-headed. His appearance motivates me: I want to lace up my boots and go out to do his bidding.

It’s important for America to eventually have a sexy Vice President, right?

That being said – when Paul Ryan speaks to the issues, he’s clearly Satan in a necktie. The Log Cabin Republicans don’t dare look at what the Human Rights Campaign has to say. It only took them one digit to send him straight to gay hell. He received the pitiful “0%” ranking on their congressional scorecard.

Let’s say for a moment, though, that you don’t give any weight to the most powerful gay rights lobbying group in America. There are other reasons that Paul Ryan is toxic. Ryan has repeatedly professed that he serves three gods: The first almighty recipient of the congressman’s devotion is clearly the Temple of Ayn Rand. Rand, as you may know by now, is the much-maligned preacher of the “Objectivist” philosophy and doctrine of unrestrained— extreme—Free Market Capitalism. This philosophy does not allow for LGBT persons to have any federal protections in the workforce. Ayn Rand says that you are not special for being either a minority or in the majority. You are an individual to whom anything can happen in capitalism, and your only shot at success is by being more of a carnivore than the next guy.

The next house in which Ryan will worship is nestled in a little place called Vatican City. The Roman Catholic Church is always going to be greater than the sum of its parts by design: There is currently a band of wayward nuns who are saying something about contraceptives in Indiana, but they are of no consequence to the Holy See- No-Evil. The Pope does a better job of protecting child molesters than he does gays or women.

The last—reluctant and beleaguered— object of Paul Ryan’s heavenly gaze is Mitt Romney himself. This faux fascination will be short-lived, I guarantee. We often reward those who bestow greatness upon us with temporary adoration. Ryan recently said that he stands firmly behind Romney’s record as a “job creator.” This is great news for China, where those jobs were actually created. It doesn’t quite wash with the people of Florida, however, where our unemployment level leaves us weighing the pros and cons of prostitution in its sincerest form.

I really do regret having to rain my “liberal hatred” all over Paul Ryan’s parade. Perhaps I’ll change my mind about him if I can see him with his shirt off.

CLIFF DUNN

I was at a barbecue over the weekend at my boyfriend’s family’s place, and before the corn on the cob had even been thrown onto the gas grill, someone asked me for whom I was voting in November’s presidential election. After good-naturedly breaking his balls about the sacro-sanctity of my vote and its very personal nature, I told him which of the candidates was more in line with my political views, circa-2012, and was immediately assailed with comments, pro and con, about my “guy.”

I honestly don’t have a lot of patience for this kind of ‘polite conversation,’ because I was a radio and television talk show host for ten years, and it doesn’t take much to set my gorge to rising, especially during the quadrennial presidential election cycle. There is very little in the current political climate (that’s watchable for more than three minutes, anyway) that smacks of intelligent, articulated, sober, and rational conversation about the most important issues that matter to us, as a community and as a nation.

The talking heads are spewing the talking points, and talk radio is so Agenda-driven (pardon the pun), that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have become the equivalent of World Wrestling Entertainment “stars:” Loudmouthed, opinionated regurgitators of a canned message that won’t brook (or invite) any debate. (There’s plenty of this to go around on the Left, too, but my homo-animus is momentarily directed towards the ’tards of the Right, thank you.)

I know when I watch one of the tights-clad personae created by promoter Vince McMahon that I am being treated to Theatre of the Grotesque, with larger-than-life depictions of dime-novel villains (or for a more recent, pop-culture relevant specie, Tom Hardy’s Bane in the latest “Batman” film is a perfect example), little more than caricatures to tease some Jungian archetypal yearning of the psyche.

That’s all well on TV—but it has no place in a grownup political conversation, and certainly shouldn’t inform a citizen’s voting choice.

(You can stop laughing now.) Unfortunately, there’s no such “mental warning label” accompanying the likes of Rush Limbaugh as when you are watching the antics of say, Hulk Hogan. But Limbaugh is no less a clown for all that he advocates policies and positions which are oh-so-less-than funny.

But at least I personally know that the pill-popping hypocrite is a clown—what excuse do his legions of Ditto-heads have to offer? Are they so starved for guidance and a firm hand (“paging Dr. Freud”) that they are willing to overlook the dishonesty, fact-twisting, and blatant lies that spew from his nicotinestained lips? They obviously don’t mind that Limbaugh never cast a vote for Ronald Reagan (because he didn’t register to vote until he was 35). Telling other people how they should think is easier, I guess, than making up your own mind.

There’s nothing wrong with being a Democrat, or a Republican, or a Libertarian (small or large “l”), or a progressive, traditionalist, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. What’s wrong is refusing to be an HONEST one of those things. The modern political party system, as practiced in the U.S., is two major corporations competing for sponsorship dollars.

Period. To say it a different way, the DNC and the RNC are like Ford or General Motors, competing for you as a consumer of their product, which is one of ideas. Brand loyalty is fine when it comes to soft drinks, sports teams, and clothing. It’s okay to be a “Chevy man,” or a “Binaca boy,” but to call oneself a “Yellow Dog Democrat” in the context of a modern information age is being willfully ignorant, something which, sadly doesn’t un-qualify a person to vote. My respect and admiration for FDR isn’t about to cloud my worldview concerning the gross and corrupt Vito Lopez of Brooklyn, just as my reverence of Lincoln and my appreciation for Reagan won’t blind me to the disappointment of George W. Bush, or the embarrassment of Sarah Palin and Todd Akin. Nor should they you.

Because I choose—when it comes to my voting franchise, anyway—to be willfully informed, I refuse to allow “brand loyalty” to inform my choice for president any more than it will impact my choice for dinner.

I “enjoy” (in the broadest definition of the word) listening to Limbaugh barn-burn his way to the fringe, because I “get” that he is, on some level, playing a part (as hatefully as did Father Coughlin in the 1930s), just as I get a kick out of the acerbic barbs of the more rational (to my mind) Rachel Maddow. But I understand it to be info-tainment, and I am more likely to make a voting choice based on something that the Economist said about the euro than something Kathy Griffin said about Romney.

The stakes for marriage equality, as well as ongoing efforts like the repeal of the bigoted and un- American Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the passage of ENDA (which even Paul Ryan— although not Mitt Romney— supported), and lingering concerns like the final vestiges of DADT, are too high to do otherwise.

By RICHARD K. CLAYCOMB

In a recent piece in the Florida Agenda (August 15, 2012, “The Consequences of Run-Amok Liberalism,” by Jason Otero), a gay Republican stated that Democrats have done nothing to address the economy. Let’s look at the facts:

• Provisions in the “Cash for Clunkers” program—which allowed Americans a tax break only if they bought autos made in the U.S.A.—was blocked by Republicans. The number one auto brand purchased under that program was Toyota, the majority of which are made in Japan.

• President Obama’s stimulus package had provisions that encouraged Americans to buy American-made goods, to help create jobs. Republicans blocked that provision.

• That stimulus package has pulled the U.S. out of the Great Recession. Republicans repeatedly attempted to block it, and now claim the stimulus has failed.

• Republican President George W. Bush started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over a trillion dollars in taxpayer money has being spent for those wars and to rebuild the infrastructures in those countries destroyed by American bombs. America’s infrastructure is in sorry need of repair. Republicans repeatedly block job creation bills designed to make those repairs.

• Republicans say we can’t afford health care for uninsured Americans, and attempted to block legislation which would result in job creation in the health care industry to provide for uninsured Americans.

• Republicans attempted to block loans to the auto industry—now being repaid—which if not made, would have resulted in job losses during a time the U.S. continued to shell out financial aid (not loans) to other countries. The revived American auto industry has been hiring new workers because of an increase in sales of American-made cars.

Otero said the younger generation doesn’t care who gets married: But look up the ages of the young men who killed Matthew Shepard. He wrote we should work on the economy, stop trying to give gays the right to marry, and make abortion illegal again. Hitler took away the rights of gays, and ordered their extermination, while the majority of Germans supported him because he promised jobs. Criminologists in the 1970s predicted that America would become a police state to handle rising crime. Legalized abortion allowed women living in poverty the option to not have unwanted children.

Many of those born into poverty turn to crime because of the lack of jobs in communities at the poverty level.

Republican President Ronald Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis, resulting in an epidemic number of dead gays across America. If you’re a gay Republican, you belong to a political party that includes people who would like to see you put away in camps or exterminated. If you’re a gay Republican, you follow a political agenda that makes money more important than the teachings of the major religions, including Christianity, so you really shouldn’t complain about losing friends in the LGBT community because of your political beliefs, as Otero complained, since the majority of mentally-balanced people don’t want to associate with people who don’t practice what they say they believe.

By JOE HARRIS

Walk with me, if you will, through the fields of my political imagination, while we analyze if former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s endorsement on Sunday of President Obama’s re-election campaign gives us a window into what turns him on. Although “comeback” is on the lips of many observers, the first word to pop into my mind is “punishment,” followed by “masochist,” and an image of the Once-and-[He Hopes]-Future- Governor playing a B&D/S&M scene with political operatives from both major parties.

The Republicans have already talked about Crist’s endorsement in the same terminology a dominatrix might use to scold a naughty businessman during a lunchtime quickie. Florida GOP chairman Lenny Curry slammed the former governor as “a self-centered career politician,” “repugnant,” “selfish,” and “looking after his own interests,” and then verbally spanked him, adding, “in spite of an approaching hurricane, no less!”

The notion of Crist as a “political masochist” seeking release through punishment is only heightened (exponentially) with the thought of how DEMOCRATS will go after him once his plans are known. It’s a pretty safe bet that Crist’s move was timed to maximize the media attention, and is another major step by the once-popular politician to crawl up from the ash heap of history towards rebirth as a Democrat and a return to competitive politics. It also increases the buzz to a fever pitch concerning Crist’s intentions to run for governor in 2014, or other elected office—but this time as a Democrat. You’ll have a chance to see his “audition tape” next week, when he addresses the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Republicans will have a field day condemning a recycled Crist, attacking him like they did John Kerry as a flipflopper, but also as a party traitor, and a collaborator with the hated Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. They have already pointed to his abandonment of his previous positions, including his 2010 admonition against Obama that, “I don’t agree with the guy on hardly anything he does,” his self-description as a “pro-life” “Ronald Reagan Republican,” his opposition to ObamaCare, and his “cheerful” support of a state constitutional amendment banning marriage equality.

And the Republican Party “talking points” actually suggest, “You should take every opportunity with the media to remind Floridians that Crist has made a career out of bashing the Democrat Party and everything President Obama stands for.” Imagine how much hay other Democratic candidates will make of that when they stand against Crist during a future primary.

In the words of the Florida GOP’s Curry, “Charlie Crist has demonstrated, yet again, that his political ambition will always come first.”

For his part, Crist has been invoking the memory and paraphrasing the words of Ronald Reagan, suggesting that he didn’t leave the GOP in 2010, but that rather the party left him, by embracing extreme positions and beliefs. The GOP talking points try to blunt that defense by noting that the ex-governor jumped the party’s ship for an electoral opportunity, and “left because polls showed he had a better chance to win the [U.S.] Senate seat as an Independent.”

Does Crist have a right to a “second act” in politics? Sure he does. But Republicans have a legitimate right to cast him as an opportunist—a professional politician who is just looking for an elected office to occupy. South Floridians have seen this before (sorry, Jim Lewis). My own fascination with train wrecks leaves me wondering what kind of punishment the members of his own (new) party have planned for Crist: Florida politics’ Once-and-Future whipping.

CLIFF DUNN

“It is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the President or anyone else.” – Theodore Roosevelt

I used to love the national political conventions, but no longer. Over the next two weeks, politically active Americans will “drink the Kool Aid” and engage in saber-rattling diatribes and unleash the most unpleasant hyperbole concerning their fellow countrymen since Republicans questioned the bravery, honor, and military awards of John Kerry in 2004 (unless you count their 2008 vilification of Obama’s putative “Muslim religion” and their calling into question his citizenship). Democrats don’t get a pass here, with 30-year-old irrelevancies about Ronald Reagan’s senility, the 1988 “wimp” bombs they threw at George H.W. Bush, accusations in 2004 that his son, George W. Bush, was somehow complicit in the September 11 attacks, ad nauseum. More galling to me than that sort of nonstarter is the quasi-tribal, siege mindset that overtakes the most partisan among us, and the accompanying notion that members of the opposing party are the ENEMY (as if Osama bin Laden gave a rat’s toenail what the political party affiliations were of the World Trade Center’s honored dead).

Each year, the Democrats and Republicans host annual fundraising dinner events which bring local, state, and national brass to the trenches (in this case, ones filled with rubber chicken and contribution envelopes) in an effort to rally the—moneyed—troops and preach the Gospel of Talking Points to the chewing choir. The Democrats’ Jefferson- Jackson and the Republicans’ Lincoln- Reagan dinners are ideological red meat for “starved” political operatives and wannabes, and it never ceases to amuse me that most of the party stalwarts have no clue just who— or what—they are honoring.

Thomas Jefferson was a “small government” progressive who envisioned America as an agrarian society, where laws and regulations would be minimal, allowing the “good sense” of the people to reign as well as rule. In this, he was opposed by Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists, who resemble Mitt Romney and the modern GOP in that they favored the moneyed classes and capital, but they also supported a centralized Federal government to facilitate the growth and stability of the new nation.X

Although many Republicans claim that in today’s political climate, Jefferson would be a member of the Grand Old Party, this doesn’t take into account the 18th Century realities: In the 1700s, America WAS an agricultural nation, and didn’t require the degree of government regulation that a modern, industrialized society demands.X

In fact, it was two bona fide Republican Presidents who set into motion the very “Era of Big Government” that a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, proclaimed to be “over” in the 1990s. Abraham Lincoln’s calls for a national military draft during the American Civil War was the first of its kind—and made northerners hate the Great Emancipator as much as did slaveholders in the then-solidly Democratic south.

Legal scholars of the 1860s were as divided as the nation was in their opinions over whether Lincoln had the constitutional power to prevent southern secession and dissolution of the Union. And his suspension of habeas corpus foreshadowed the modern debate over the Patriot Act’s encroachment into civil liberties (a law, incidentally, that was championed by a “small government” conservative President, Bush-43).

Possibly America’s “biggest government” President, Theodore Roosevelt gave nightmares to bosses of his day’s GOP for his support of progressive causes. (When he was chosen as running mate for the incumbent president, Republican William McKinley, an exasperated machine boss, Mark Hanna of New York, shouted, “Don’t any of you realize that there’s only one life between that madman and the Presidency? What…will he do as President if McKinley should die?” As if on cue, McKinley was assassinated 15 months later.)

The Republican Teddy spoke of a “Square Deal,” a progressive outline for equal opportunity for all Americans—with special emphasis on the importance of fair government regulations over corporate “special interests.” (Read about the Triangle Shirt Factory fire and tell me that employees need LESS workplace protections.) Does that mean that he—or Obama—stand for harm to small business? Uh—no.

Roosevelt made America’s natural resources a national issue. He favored using them wisely, and opposed wasteful consumption. He leaves a legacy of five national parks, 18 national monuments, and 150 National Forests, among other works. Does that make the Rough Rider— or Obama—a tree-hugging nature lover? Is this even actually a bad thing?

In his 1908 Annual Message to Congress, T.R. spoke of the need for the federal government to regulate interstate corporations (under the constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause), and cited big business’ battle against federal regulations, by appealing to the importance of states’ rights (which was as much a canard in 1912 as it is in 2012).

Child labor laws, workplace safety requirements, an eight-hour work day, and the Republic itself—we owe all these to liberal Republicans. Enjoy Tampa, members of the Grand Old Party.