Congressman Patrick Murphy has been painted by Republicans for months as a privileged, party-boy scion of a wealthy South Florida developer.
Emails and ads blast the 33-year-old single congressman as having used his father's connections and money to attend elite private schools, start a small business, secure a seat in the U.S. House and bankroll a run for the U.S. Senate.
It wasn't hard, at a recent Republican fundraising dinner in Tampa, to listen to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and imagine that you were still hearing a presidential candidate. His themes were decidedly national, focusing on the stakes of the election and the urgency of doing something soon about the country's future.
This column is a vehicle for a number of items in a bits-and-pieces, strictly opinion, sometimes irreverent format. Look for "Just Sayin'" to run once a week in this spot. Consider this a pilot.
A major figure in the Clinton White House visited Florida this week as part of a bid for the presidency. The two political parties fought over election rules in court. And there was talk of a rigged election.
Welcome back to 2000.
After the third and final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton continues to have the lead over Donald Trump in the crucial swing state of Florida, a new poll shows.
How does a millionaire's kid lacking credentials or accomplishment launch a political career virtually overnight? In Patrick Murphy's case, easy.
Maybe the presidential candidates and their surrogates could just wave at each other from Florida's airport tarmacs.
Last week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, did something of a tag-team routine as they campaigned across Florida for five straight days.
Trump started in Panama City Beach, spent the next day visiting Ocala and Lakeland, and finished the following day in West Palm Beach. Pence picked up from there, campaigning one day in Pensacola and Miami and the next night speaking to Republican leaders in Tampa.
With two weeks to go until Election Day, most of the congressional races across the Sunshine State are not getting much in the way of attention. They simply can’t compete with the presidential race or even the Senate contest between Marco Rubio and Patrick Murphy.
Donald Trump came into the third and final presidential debate in Las Vegas needing to change the race.
Solar-energy supporters fighting a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot expressed outrage Wednesday after a policy director for a Tallahassee-based think tank was caught on tape discussing utility-industry efforts to deceive voters.
Pro-solar groups, in a mid-day conference call with reporters, said the leaked audio tape confirms their suspicion that the ballot proposal --- known as Amendment 1 --- is a multimillion-dollar deception that will hinder the future of alternative energy in Florida.
