Daily News Clips for October 29, 2012

FEATURED STORIES

Advantage Obama in hunt for 270 electoral votes
By Thomas Beaumont
Associated Press
President Barack Obama is poised to eke out a victory in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win re-election, having beaten back Republican Mitt Romney's attempts to convert momentum from the debates into support in all-important Ohio, according to an Associated Press analysis a week before Election Day.

Faced with long lines at some sites, early voters stay patient
By Steve Bousquet, John Woodrow Cox and Shelley Rossetter
Tampa Bay Times
Related: More than 1 million Floridians have cast absentee ballots
Tens of thousands of eager and determined Florida voters patiently stood in long lines Saturday as early voting began in a close presidential race in the nation's biggest battleground state.

Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll: I-4 voters back Romney 51-45
By Adam C. Smith
Tampa Bay Times
Related: Florida Insider Poll bets heavily on Romney winning state
Related: Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll: Riding Romney's coattails, Mack edges closer to Nelson
It has been a fundamental rule of Florida politics for decades: Statewide campaigns are won and lost on the I-4 corridor.

How the GOP’s voter suppression laws may have inadvertently cost them Florida
By David Weigel
Slate
Tomorrow, as the sun rises, Bishop Victor Curry of New Birth Baptist Church will wake up and race to the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in downtown.

Architect of felon voter purge behind Florida’s new limits
By Dara Kam and John Lantigua
Palm Beach Post
The Republican attorney who engineered the 2000 Florida felons list, which African American leaders said purged thousands of eligible blacks from voter rolls in the state and helped swing that election to the GOP, also wrote the first draft of Florida’s controversial House Bill 1355 that has restricted early voting and voter registration campaigns in 2012.

How Hurricane Sandy Could Swing the Election
By Adam Serwer
Mother Jones
Hurricane Sandy, which is barreling towards America's east coast, is epic in scale—according to the National Weather Service, the storm reaches from Florida to Connecticut.

EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK

By Jim Morin
Miami Herald

FLORIDA POLITICS

Copying of thousands of bad Palm Beach County absentee ballots reveals bigger issue with voter signatures
By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post
With the White House, key state and national races and the overarching issue of women’s reproductive rights hanging in the balance, Palm Beach County’s leading abortion rights advocate had no intention of sitting out the November election.

A gubernatorial campaign may be in Charlie Crist’s future
By Jeremy Wallace
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist did little to slow down speculation last week that he’s preparing for a campaign against Gov. Rick Scott in two years.

Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll: I-4 voters wanted high-speed rail
By Aaron Sharockman
Tampa Bay Times
A majority of I-4 corridor voters did not like Florida Gov. Rick Scott's decision to cancel plans for a high-speed rail line that would have linked Tampa and Orlando, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Central Florida 13 poll.

Florida's Days as a GOP Stronghold Are Numbered
By Pierre Tristam
Florida Voices
Florida looks, feels and acts like a one-party state: The Republican Party is doing an admirable job of cloning its lock-stepping foot soldiers from the Panhandle almost to South Florida.

POLITICAL RACES

Thousands heed call of ‘Souls to the Polls’ in Miami, statewide
By Jordan Levin
Miami Herald
Related: Early vote figures don’t lie. But who figures?
At Sunday noon services at the Faith Community Baptist Church in North Miami, youth preacher Richard P. Dunn III praised the boys’ football team and talked about God’s help in turning a cruel world into a happy one.

Barack Obama for Re-election
Editorial
New York Times
The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold.

15,000 fill Pasco football field to see Mitt Romney
By Adam C. Smith and Lee Logan
Tampa Bay Times
Democrats like to chant "Four more years!" at their Barack Obama campaign rallies, but on Saturday fired-up Florida Republicans offered up their own rallying cry.

Obama cancels Florida campaign trip, returns to DC
By Julie Pace
Associated Press
A strengthening Hurricane Sandy disrupted the campaign for the White House Monday, with President Obama canceling his political rallies and rushing back to the White House from battleground Florida to monitor the storm and get Air Force One safely back to Washington.

First-time Puerto Rican voters, especially in Florida, could be a critical game-changer in presidential race
By Frances Robles
Miami Herald
Diana Caballero is the ultimate swing voter in the ultimate swing state, a member of a sought-after demographic that could help decide the 2012 presidential race.

Karl Rove's American Crossroads reshaping Florida election
By Aaron Sharockman
Tampa Bay Times
The unofficial race for the White House is being fought in a 12th floor suite of a building wedged between a Starbucks and a cross fit studio, five minutes' walk from the Oval Office.

End game unfolds in Mack-Nelson Senate match-up
By John Kennedy
Palm Beach Post
Connie Mack IV plans to barnstorm Saturday across Florida at the elbow of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, as Florida’s U.S. Senate race enters a crucial homestretch with sharp distinctions in style separating the GOP contender and incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson.

Not an easy makeover for Allen West
By Carl Hiaasen
Miami Herald
After less than two years in Congress, Rep. Allen West has raised $15 million to get himself re-elected.

BALLOT INITIATIVES

State amendments: from health reform to tax relief
By News Service of Florida
Miami Herald
A synopsis of the proposed constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot.

Property-tax amendment would hit local governments' budgets
By Mark Schlueb
Orlando Sentinel
Florida's cities and counties are bracing for the loss of an estimated $1 billion in property taxes if voters approve a state constitutional amendment on Election Day.

Florida's Amendment 1: Testing public support for 'Obamacare'
By Tia Mitchell
Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Supporters and opponents of Amendment 1 say it could have relatively no impact on Floridians as long as the leadership in Washington remains the same.

Send Tallahassee a message: Vote 'no' on amendments
Editorial
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Just vote no. That's our recommendation to voters who will be confronted with 11 state constitutional amendments — and summaries totaling over 2,000 words — on the general election ballot.

LGBT

Romney: 'Some Gays Are Actually Having Children. It's Not Right on Paper. It's Not Right in Fact.'
By Michelangelo Signorile
Huffington Post
We've witnessed many Mitt Romneys, but the one unearthed by the Boston Globe's Murray Waas yesterday is perhaps the most vicious and cruel: a zealot who, as Massachusetts governor, became hellbent on stigmatizing the children of gay and lesbian parents, labeling these kids as outcasts and causing them to suffer hardship throughout their lives.

EDUCATION

Scott’s education plan asks Floridians to have short memories
Editorial
Palm Beach Post
Gov. Rick Scott last week announced a new education plan, “College & Career FIRST.”

Lawmakers need to tighten loopholes for charter schools
By John Romano
Tampa Bay Times
No more excuses. No more self-serving propaganda.

Players change in school-choice fight – but not the objective
By Aaron Deslatte
Orlando Sentinel
Florida education interest-groups are waging a multi-front fight this fall over traditional public-school alternatives like charters and voucher programs.

Schools’ involvement in Romney rally continues to cause controversy
By William March
Tampa Tribune
The involvement of Pasco County public school facilities and students in Mitt Romney campaign rally is continuing to cause controversy.

Panel putting final touches on Fla higher ed plan
Associated Press
Palm Beach Post
Gov. Rick Scott's higher education task force is putting the finishing touches on its recommendations for Florida's public universities.

JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY

Florida Shipping Jobs Out of State
By Mike Vasilinda
Capitol News Service
Eight hundred thousand Floridians remain out of work, yet the state is contracting with out of state firms that aren’t creating a single Florida job.

Florida has STEM jobs, but not grads to fill them
By Kathleen Haughney
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Gov. Rick Scott never shies away from an opportunity to tell the state that the unemployment rate is down or that a new company -- no matter how big or small -- is opening a Florida location or that job openings are growing.

Workplace deaths: Florida second in nation, region has a dozen or more yearly
By Aisling Swift
Naples Daily News
A five-story Miami-Dade College parking garage under construction collapsed on Oct. 10, with a fourth victim's body pulled from the rubble in mid-October.

Hispanic Lawmakers Blast Fla. Chamber For Opposing Cuba-Syria Ban
By Jessica Palombo
WFSU Tallahassee
Lawmakers in the Florida Hispanic Caucus are blasting the Florida Chamber of Commerce for opposing a law that prohibits the state from doing business with oppressive regimes.

License remake gets needed rethink
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
Anytime government looks to change a basic function that impacts millions of Floridians — and needs more money to do it — don't expect rubberstamp approval.

HEALTH AND SENIORS

Efforts to fight pill mills working, but funding in question
By Gray Rohrer
Florida Current
Elected officials are touting stepped-up law enforcement efforts and a prescription-tracking database as putting a dent in the number of deaths related to pain killers, but so far state leaders have not found a way to pay for either venture on a permanent basis.

Pharmacy ‘deplorable,’ dirty: state
By Carol Gentry
Health News Florida
A Florida Department of Health report that became public on Friday ordered the suspension of a Boca Raton compounding pharmacy because it  “constitutes an immediate, serious danger” to the public.

State should step in to protect children in group homes
Editorial
Tampa Bay Times
An ugly truth about Florida in the 21st century: Children are beaten, abused and traumatized at lightly regulated or unregulated group homes across the state, and government repeatedly turns a blind eye.

CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Arguments set in challenge to Fla drug testing law
By Kate Brumback
Associated Press
A federal appeals court in Atlanta will hear arguments in a legal challenge to a Florida law requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test, and the ultimate outcome could affect similar efforts in other states.

JUSTICE AND THE COURTS

Former prosecutor 'resents' GOP tactics used against Supreme Court justices
By Bill Cotterell
Florida Current
The appellate prosecutor in the murder case cited by the Republican Party of Florida to depict three state Supreme Court justices as "judicial activists" said Friday all three are "outstanding justices who are being unfairly attacked for overtly political reasons."