Dance of the Reptiles (44 page)

Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, so GOP leaders are desperate to find ways to keep certain people away from the polls. One of the Legislature’s top priorities was to change the voting rules to avoid a repeat of 2008, when Barack Obama won the state’s 27 electoral votes on his way to the presidency.

Obama benefited from early-voting days, which proved popular among minorities, college students, and retirees. Republican officials became incensed during the election when then-Governor Charlie Crist—one of their own—decided to extend polling hours to accommodate the long lines.

The nerve of that guy, making it easier for common citizens to vote!

Determined not to let this whole democracy thing get out of hand, the GOP-held Legislature crafted a bill that reduces the number of early voting days from 15 to eight and requires some voters who have moved to cast provisional ballots, a deliberate inconvenience aimed at students.

Historically, provisional ballots are counted at a much lower rate than regular ones, meaning many young voters won’t get heard—exactly what Scott and the Republican leadership want. The new bill also throws out a rule that had been in effect for 40 years, allowing Floridians to update their legal addresses when they arrive to vote. Now you can only do that if you moved within the same county.

To hinder community groups that register first-time voters, the law requires volunteers for organizations such as the League of Women Voters to register with the state as if they were sex offenders.

Upon signing the anti-voting bill into law, Gov. Spaceman said the following: “I want people to vote, but I also want to make sure there’s no fraud involved in elections. All of us as individuals that vote want to make sure that our elections are fair and honest.”

Those who recall what happened here in the 2000 presidential election can’t help but chuckle at the comic aspect of a Republican governor pretending to fret about voter fraud.

Interestingly, the officials who are most familiar with the
fraud issue—the county supervisors of elections—are mostly opposed to the new voting law and say current voter databases are fairly accurate. They actually asked the Legislature for more early-voting sites and were, of course, rebuffed.

The statewide association of election supervisors also warned Scott that imposing the restrictive provisions could cause a fiasco at the polls in 2012, just what we need to reinforce our national reputation for electoral dysfunction.

When the governor promised to bring all those new jobs to Florida, who knew he was talking about lawyers?

Nobody except a handful of GOP honchos thought the punitive new voting law was a good idea. The League of Women Voters, labor unions, and other citizen groups lobbied against it, to no avail. Scott’s office reported receiving more than 15,300 calls and e-mails, with opposition running 10 to one. It’s significant that the governor’s own overseer of elections, Secretary of State Kurt Browning, never once spoke in favor of the legislation. Only after Scott signed the bill did Browning offer a lukewarm endorsement.

The effort to manipulate elections by making it difficult for some people to vote has been around since the nation was founded. It’s a strategy that was infamously codified in the Deep South by “literacy tests” intended to disenfranchise black citizens, which prompted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Congressional Democrats have asked the Justice Department to block Florida’s new law, which already took effect in all but five counties—Monroe, Hendry, Hardee, Collier, and Hillsborough. There the federal government must approve changes to voter-eligibility rules.

In addition to impeding potential Democratic voters, Republican lawmakers have tacked several items on the November 2012 ballot in hopes of galvanizing their own base.
You’ll see an anti-abortion amendment, an anti-Obamacare amendment, and still another measure that would allow tax dollars to be funneled to religious institutions.

The GOP’s dream scenario is a low turnout dominated by a grumpy, aging core of conservative white people who can’t stand Obama. With their party outnumbered on Florida’s voter rolls, top Republicans hope that rigging the voting rules will improve their chances to recapture the White House.

You could call it democracy with selective exclusion.

Or you could call it what it is.

November 5, 2011

GOP Laff-fest Coming Soon to Our State

When Florida’s Republican 2012 presidential primary was moved up to January 31, the reaction was mixed.

Some voters were glad to be getting past it sooner than later. Others were dismayed that the holiday season would be polluted by vicious campaign commercials and distracting barnstorm visits from candidates.

Now it’s clear that many of us underestimated the redemptive entertainment value of the GOP race. Floridians are in need of a good laugh, and this particular ensemble will deliver plenty of those.

Rick Perry, the Texas governor, spent last week denying that he was drunk or high when he gave a speech punctuated by odd giggles and twitches in New Hampshire. The video has become a YouTube sensation, and it’s hilarious stuff—at least until you consider that this goober might someday have his finger on the button that controls America’s nuclear arsenal.

In the governor’s defense, his campaign staff said that Perry was simply being “passionate” in front of the New Hampshire crowd. Jerry Garcia liked to perform in a passionate
state, too. Before he went onstage with the Grateful Dead, he’d go straight to his dressing room and drop some heavy passion.

After that weird speech, Perry’s strategic mistake was claiming to be straight when it happened. He should have just said, “Yeah, okay, I had a few beers.” Or even “Shoot, I must’ve accidentally popped a Xanax instead of my Lipitor.”

Then people would have thought: Oh, that explains it.

But the possibility that he was totally sober isn’t quite as funny. In fact, it’s semi-terrifying.

This isn’t the sergeant at arms of your local Kiwanis Club who’s nervous about speaking in public. This is a career politician who wants to be the freaking commander in chief of the United States.

With Perry polling only slightly ahead of Dr. Conrad Murray, the New Hampshire debacle should have sunk his hopes for the White House. No way. The Texan will be rolling full steam into Florida, and for that we have Herman Cain to thank.

Last week it was revealed that the pizza king turned front-runner had been twice formally named in sexual-harassment complaints when he was head of the National Restaurant Association. (There was a time in this great nation’s history when a background in franchise-food services wasn’t considered a springboard to the U.S. presidency, but this is a new day.)

Cain denied the damaging charges and accused his rival Perry of leaking the information to the press. Things can only get uglier between now and January, which means Floridians can look forward to a blaring, venomous, low-class campaign.

The trick is not to get depressed but, rather, to enjoy the show for what it is.

Michele Bachmann will be here, and God only knows
what will come out of her mouth. Don’t be surprised if she confuses the Seminole tribe with the Apaches.

And then there’s undersedated Rick Santorum, moldy Newt Gingrich, invisible Jon Huntsman, and dependably amusing Ron Paul, who hovers like a benign but addled Yoda on the fringe of every debate. The race is Mitt Romney’s to win. All he has to do is appear halfway sane, which should be easy, considering the competition.

Romney’s biggest hurdle will be trying to explain his pandemic flip-flopping, and that might prove impossible. His best shot at victory is to stick with two basic talking points:

As Cain and Perry stumble, a Romney win is looking like a done deal. However, Florida is a land of unpleasant surprises where front-runners can crash and burn.

Ask Gary Hart, whose bid for the Democratic nomination began unraveling with his antics aboard a Miami yacht called
Monkey Business
in 1987. Less titillating but equally final was the collapse of Rudy Giuliani during the last presidential campaign. The former New York mayor staked everything on winning Florida, and he virtually camped out here for weeks. But the more stump speeches he gave and the more hands he shook, the lower he dropped in the polls. To know Rudy was to lose interest. As a result, John McCain captured the state and, ultimately, the Republican nomination.

Romney is less prickly than Giuliani, and he definitely has better hair, no small advantage in national politics. His advisers will coach him to stand tall, stay cool, and avoid getting dragged into the mud pit with Cain, Perry, and the others. However, the mud pit is where all the fun happens. That’s
why so many TV viewers are watching the GOP debates, waiting for somebody to melt down or fly into orbit.

People say they want civility in politics, but that’s a pipe dream. The presidential campaign is way too long and silly.

Being connoisseurs of the absurd, Floridians should welcome the candidates as fountains of comic relief. For voters here, the road to the primary will be difficult to endure without a sense of humor or 50 milligrams of “passion.”

November 10, 2012

Once Again, Florida’s the National Punch Line

The bad news is that Florida screwed up another big election.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter this time.

By now, we Floridians have stoically accepted our laughingstock role in the Electoral College. To comedy writers, we’re the gift that keeps on giving. What would Jon Stewart and David Letterman do without us?

We are the Joke State.

And by a stroke of good fortune, it’s much easier to smile today than it was 12 years ago.

Gov. Rick Scott should send a bushel of oranges to every voter in Ohio as thanks for getting Florida off the hook and sparing the nation from another
Bush v. Gore
debacle.

The 2012 presidential race was basically over last Tuesday night when precincts in Cleveland and other key areas began reporting. President Obama’s victory was announced shortly after 11
P.M.
, while many Miami voters were still waiting in long lines. To their honor, lots of them stayed and voted anyway.

On Wednesday, Floridians awoke to learn that thousands of ballots remained uncounted in Miami-Dade and several
other counties. As the sorting process dragged into Thursday, we all began hearing from friends and relatives living in normal places where elections are conducted without scandal or farce. Whether it was by text, e-mail, or phone call, the gist of the inquiry was the same: What is wrong with your state?

CBS asked me the same question, and all I could say was: “It’s a freak show.”

Yes, Florida’s ballot was ridiculously long, stacked with dense constitutional amendments.

Yes, exceptionally long poll lines were made worse by the Legislature’s decision to cut the early-voting period from 14 days to eight days. It was one of several Republican strategies to stifle turnout in the cities, and it backfired.

And yes, Gov. Scott could have made the election go smoother if he hadn’t refused to extend polling hours for early voting. However, there was scant chance of the governor lifting a finger to help urban Hispanics or African-Americans cast ballots, because they often vote Democrat.

Adding to those factors last week were the same demons that helped send the 2000 presidential contest to the Supreme Court—random bungling, lack of preparation, and free-floating confusion.

Chads or no chads, Florida simply isn’t equipped to run a major election. We’re in way over our heads, and we should admit it.

Mixed among all the smart, hardworking people in county election offices are a few witless boobs, some of them in supervisory positions. All it takes is one to gum up the works.

While Miami-Dade is no stranger to treachery in its elections, last week’s fiasco is more likely the result of unpreparedness. Poll workers were swamped with last-minute absentee ballots from voters who got weary of standing in
line. Once more, Florida found itself in the humiliating position of being the only state in the union that couldn’t get its act together and add up the votes of its citizens on time.

By midnight Tuesday, every other state on the electoral map was blue or red. We were the only blank one on the board and stayed that way late into the week. This time all of America wasn’t anxiously waiting. It was chuckling and shaking its head.

We can’t count on Ohio or any of the swing states to bail us out again in 2016, so what are our options?

In case you were wondering, the U.S. Constitution makes no allowance for a state to exempt itself from presidential elections in order to avoid national ridicule. Nor is there any legal mechanism by which Florida’s 11 million registered voters might have their ballots shipped somewhere safe to be counted—say, Kansas.

Maybe we just hold our heads up high and try again, bracing for the inevitable screwup and the snarky one-liners to follow.

If the next presidential campaign proves as exhausting and dispiriting as this one, the country will sorely need a laugh or two when it’s over. Perhaps that is Florida’s true electoral destiny—to be the comic relief, the perpetual punch line.

It’s way less painful than being the decider.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS