Columnist.
It has been my contention for the past decade that when it comes to politics, as Florida goes, so goes the nation. Think about the 2008 presidential election. First, following the CNN-YouTube debate, the last major Republican debate to be held before the Iowa caucus, our firm polled Floridians for the Florida Chamber of Commerce. We asked respondents who won the debate. A then-unknown candidate was the clear winner, and the boost he received in Florida gave Mike Huckabee a win in Iowa just over a month later. The tipping point in the Republican presidential contest was Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement of John McCain in that state's GOP primary. Soon afterward, McCain won an upset victory in New Hampshire. It propelled him to the nomination.
I won't go into it again about my years as a student in England and how much I love that country and the university where I received my degree. It is irrelevant to the "Alice in Wonderland" situation that just keeps getting more bizarre -- Britain's banning of American conservative talk radio host Michael Savage from entering their country. Now, it looks like the British government not only banned the wrong Savage, it also released from prison a genuine savage. As noted in my column of several months ago, Dr. Savage, the third-most-listened-to radio talk show host in the United States, was lumped together on a list of "undesirables" with terrorists and murderers.
Obama Is New Jimmy Carter
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Several months back, I suggested that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist was the perfect moderate politician to help bring independent voters back to the Republican Party. Crist had just announced his plans to skip a second term as governor and instead seek the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Mel Martinez. In that race next year, Crist is being challenged in the GOP primary by a young Cuban-American, the highly conservative former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Marco Rubio.
It's just one state. But it's one of the centers of African-American culture and influence in the nation. Atlanta, Georgia, with nearly six million residents in its metro area, is home to hundreds of top black musicians and other entertainers, civil rights leaders and business entrepreneurs.
