Remember Florida Congressman David Rivera, Sen. Marco Rubio's honest-to-God-no-hyperbole-best-friend? When I wrote about Rivera last month, several different law enforcement agencies were looking at all sorts of allegations concerning what appears to be a shadow primary campaign that Rivera, a Republican, engineered against Joe Garcia, his Democratic rival in the November election.
Since then — and I'm not making this up — the shadow candidate's campaign manager, a woman whom Rivera claimed to not know but whose Facebook page was plastered with pictures of the two of them, has vanished.
Witness missing in case of Rubio's pal Rivera
Sep. 24, 20127 Things for Dems to Worry About Before Election Day
Sep. 21, 2012
Polls are looking better --not good, just better -- for President Barack Obama, but as one mystery Dem quoted by Politico says, it ain't over until Karl Rove sings.
Polls have Obama up anywhere from 2 to 11 points, but things are so volatile that anything could happen. And, frankly, while Romney has been getting most of the attention for foot-in-mouth disease, Obama has had his share as well. Just this week, he barely made it out alive in an interview with Univisión's Jorge Ramos.
In other words, if you're backing the president, don't go for the bubbly just yet. Things to worry about from now until the election:
Iowa Republican tries to kick Latinos off voter rolls
Sep. 20, 2012Thirty-one U.S. states currently have laws in place that require voters to show some sort of ID at the polls — almost all passed in the last three years by GOP state legislatures and enforced by Republican secretaries of state.
Almost to a fault, the laws are designed to disenfranchise African-American voters (I know, I know, everybody says “minority” but what they mean is black urban voters of all ages).
Iowa appeared to top the list in recent months as the 32nd state with new and restrictive voting laws, but with a twist: With more than 93 percent of the state population reported as white and blacks registering only 3 percent, GOP Secretary of State Matt Schultz aimed his directive at Iowa's Latinos.
Romney takes a swipe at Latinos in 'secret video'
Sep. 18, 2012Monday, while Mitt Romney was trying to smooth talk Latinos at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, his campaign released a new video celebrating October as Hispanic Heritage Month.
The video features a laid back Mitt taking about Latino contributions to the U.S., with clips showing baseball great Roberto Clemente and salsa queen Celia Cruz among many others. It doesn’t address a single issue, doesn’t say one word about what Romney will do for Hispanics, and doesn’t tout a previous record with Latinos — which makes it quite similar to the chamber of commerce speech.
Romney's recklessness
Sep. 13, 2012Echoing concerns I wrote about just two months ago, Mitt Romney made comments this week about the tragedy at U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt that were downright dangerous.
Romney was reckless, enough to try and undermine the president and put American lives at risk all over the Middle East for a pure political play. Tuesday night — the evening of September 11 — both campaigns had pledged to lay off politics in observance of the lives lost 11 years ago.
The disconnect between policies and the reality in schools
Sep. 11, 2012O’Toole Elementary School sits on a quiet, sun-drenched block in Englewood on the first day of Chicago's teachers strike. Little tufts of grass poke through the concrete lots on which cars and kids are usually found. On the drive up Seely Avenue, maybe one-third of the houses are boarded up. In one abandoned apartment building a couple of blocks away, the boards are torn from the windows, the lock on a door is gone. A can of Coke rests on a window sill.
More than 400 kids go to O’Toole, almost all of them black, almost all of them low-income; about ten percent are special education students. O'Toole is a neighborhood Math & Science Initiative School but it’s also on probation. For all the lead-up to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new recess initiative, O’Toole is woefully and clearly unprepared.
“We don’t have a gate around the building,” said one of the striking teachers. “How are you going to keep the little kids in? We don’t have playground equipment. For the younger kids, you need monkey bars, you need equipment.
Roll call fun at the DNC
Sep. 6, 2012Man, I love a good roll call at a national convention. And Wednesday night’s at the DNC didn’t disappoint, with its odd collection of state facts, jabs and braggadocio.
Most outrageous? Hands down D.C.’s embattled mayor, Vince Gray, casting the district’s votes.
"We are a city that pays three-and-a-half billion dollars annually in federal taxes and raises $5.6 billion dollars in local taxes to support our city. Our great nation was founded on the fundamental principle of resistance to taxation without representation, yet we continue to endure that in the District of Columbia. So we ask you, please America, as we work to re-elect President Obama, work with us to bring justice and equality to the District of Columbia," Gray said, with a D.C. statehood sticker on his jacket.
A little later, the Virgin Islands rep made a similar plea: “We ask Americans for their support so that one day we too will be able cast our votes [in the presidential election].”
Latinos in North Carolina vital to Obama, Democrats
Sep. 4, 2012
When the Democrats kick off their convention Tuesday in Charlotte, it will be, among other things, a naked attempt to hold on to North Carolina in the electoral college. The prize is 15 electoral votes which, in a close election, can make or break a candidate’s quest.
Just to give you a sense of how difficult that might be, consider that in 2008 President Barack Obama won here by 0.3 percent margin of victory -- only about 14,000 votes.
Now consider that Bill Clinton, son of the south and keynoter at this week’s convention, was never able to claim victory in North Carolina.