What’s The Matter With Florida?

What’s The Matter With Florida?

by digby

One of my favorite Jon Stewart bits was after the 2000 election when he did a rundown on all the news from Florida that year. It really had seemed as if it had been the center of the universe for months. The punch line was, “and perhaps the biggest story of the year was the tale of one tired, confused little boy.” They flashed this picture on the screen.

Anyway, ever since California became so dysfunctional that it doesn’t even really have politics anymore at all, Florida has become the working microcosm of the nation and it just gets weirder and weirder all the time. And this story, which Howie Klein broke last week (and which has a unique distinction of being picked up in both the Florida progressive blogosphere and Florida GOP Facebook pages) is just one of them. Excerpt:

On the other hand, a little good news: although local Republicans feared Rivera might try to beat up the woman running against him, Marili Cancio at last night’s Miami-Dade Republican Party meeting, he contented himself on merely calling the police and having them escort the other opponent, Paul Crespo, out of the meeting. Both had demanded their swaggering and corrupt rival resign as county party chairman. As of this writing, he hadn’t physically attacked Cancio. On the other hand, late last night the Miami Herald reported that Rivera, widely viewed as one of South Florida’s most egregiously corrupt politicians, seemed to be trying to extort money out of the employees of Florida International University.

You have to read the whole thing to believe it.

Now this fellow Rivera isn’t just any old Republican crank. he’s the chairman of the Dade County Republicans Party and Tea Party candidate Marco Rubio’s ex-roommate and partner in a home foreclosure scandal.

Florida is the most interesting political state in the union, hands down.

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