Florida Megathread

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Annette Taddeo-Goldstein

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Devastating article from Rolling Stone.

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The Rev. Manuel Sykes is set to endorse Rick Scott. Sykes was briefly a candidate for Congress in FL-13 before being forced out by Pinellas Dem leadership, and is a prominent leader of the black community in the region.

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The Rev. Manuel Sykes is set to endorse Rick Scott. Sykes was briefly a candidate for Congress in FL-13 before being forced out by Pinellas Dem leadership, and is a prominent leader of the black community in the region.

How much, if at all, do you think this changes the dynamics of this? Will this be interpreted as an opportunistic move from Sykes?

Not a big impact on the dynamics of the race, but humiliation for Pinellas Dems, probably.

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Sykes has declined to endorse Scott but is still switching parties.

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The Tampa Bay Times endorses Crist. Reportedly, it hasn't been friendly to him in past years.

Eh. At the end of the day, Charlie's still the kid from St. Pete, and the hometown paper will vote for him.

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Rick Scott has refused to show up at the debate because there was a fan on stage.

Edit: he's now on stage. Impressive performance - committing a gaffe before even opening his mouth. Seven minutes of debate time spent on fangate.

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Blame for this is being placed on Brett O'Donnell, previously known as "Michele Bachmann's Rasputin".

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Sunshine State News is a fairly right-wing news service and even they're attacking Scott over this.

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While Scott shouldn't have thrown a hissy fit, let's not lose sight of the fact that diva Charlie needed a fan at his legs.

He always does that.

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It isn't over yet, but...this was just...ugh.

"Privately, Republicans/Rick Scott loyalists are telling me the moment he didn't go onstage over fangate was the moment he lost the election." - Marc Caputo

I'm not calling it yet, but this is definitely a couple points - more than Sink '10 phonegate level.

It's his trademark, but if the agreement-which the moderators insisted upon keep in mind-was followed, the fan would have been removed. Charlie was a douche to begin with, but he got the reaction he wanted. Props to Charlie for a smart, borderline Nixonian move.

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I don t think that will change a lot of things...

I m still believing Scott can win.

It's a stunning display of pettiness on the part of a sitting governor. Scott then followed that with a fairly poor debate, including implicitly admitting the reality of global warming, while Crist got questions about the environment - an area where his record is undoubtably superior. It's enough to shift a percentage point or two, which is all that matters.

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FWIW, the three minutes Scott didn't walk on stage has been played on nearly every news station here. People are talking about it.

Yeah, I heard about it on the normally nonpolitical talk show I listen to in the mornings, and several of my largely apolitical classmates were talking about it. Nobody seemed to be justifying Scott.

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Pete Begala on the race.

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When I saw the fan incident first on Google News at minimum 12 hours after the conclusion of the debate I could not help but think of four years earlier involving another debate between candidates for Florida governor with Alex Sink and two of her campaign aides. Rick Scott wins in 2010 by 60000 votes; a wider margin. Maybe I think elections are closer than they actually are but 60000 votes is a solid difference between two candidates. A state voting for a presidential candidate who represents the party opposite of the one that holds the state house in the state is not unusual. As a matter of fact a sign of a rejection by the Florida electorate of Rick Scott would be clear had the state gone for Mitt Romney. Rick Scott may well be Florida governor twice because he follows the rules.

See, the difference is that with the Sink thing it was clear to the average voter that Sink was cheating - the debate rules said she couldn't use a cell phone, and yet she used a cell phone to receive info on how to debate. Here, Scott's throwing a tantrum because Crist has a fan on a day when it's 90 degrees outside. General consensus is that this helps Crist - he's probably up 2 or 3 today.

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I don't understand why people keep saying "oh it was 90° crist needed that fan " like every building here is air conditioned and it can get very hot under stage lights but why do they keep saying it was 90?

IIRC the candidates were doing all their prep in RVs outside and would be walking right in to debate from outside.

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With the Herald today, that brings the Crist campaign up to three major papers (Herald, Times, and Sun-Sentinel). Obama only got the Times and Herald.

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Right now, with a million votes in, the R-to-D margin is 63,000 votes closer than it was in 2010 - the change in partisan early/absentee margins is equivalent to Scott's entire margin of victory.

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Right now, with a million votes in, the R-to-D margin is 63,000 votes closer than it was in 2010 - the change in partisan early/absentee margins is equivalent to Scott's entire margin of victory.

Good news?

Very good news!

Yep, at one million votes early/absentee in 2010, the GOP advantage was +18.5 and now it's +13. We won day one of early voting by 2.4% this year, after losing it by 11.6% in 2010. We also matched 82.6% of our day one early votes from 2010 despite only 35 counties voting, compared to the GOP only matching 59%. We beat our 2010 vote number in 31/35 counties and improved as a share of the electorate in 23/35. We're obviously not out of the woods yet, not with Scott spending millions more, but we're in a much better place than in 2010, and we only need to do 61,000 votes better.

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Winner of tonight's debate was undoubtably George Sheldon. Most notable moment was Scott throwing Bondi under the bus over rescheduling an execution to accommodate a fundraiser.

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I watched some of that debate.  Rick Scott embarrassed himself.  How did this clueless boob become governor of Florida?  

$75.1 million of his personal fortune.

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Crist and Scott on the execution postponement

If gubernatorial debates were as widely watched as presidential debates, there's absolutely no way Rick Scott would still be in this race. What a brutal exchange.

Man, the criminal is really awkward during debates. I watched the last one, and I thought maybe it was just because he was unnerved from the fan debacle, but it seems to be par for the course.

Why is Scott constantly smiling while Crist is talking about executions? What a jerk.

Not a jerk, just absolutely clueless - rumor has it that he only learned after taking office that he actually had to physically sign death warrants.

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Black turnout is also up massively relative to 2010 - 44% in Broward, 61% in Dade, and 195% in Duval.

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FL Republicans know that they are losing & release a brutal Anti-Crist ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMjfK4RZr7Y

If you want to talk about a war on women...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-1saGudoRE