A couple of things on my mind this Monday afternoon...

I see from Florida Politics that the Florida AFL-CIO decided to endorse both Betty Castor and Peter Deutsch in the Democratic race for U.S. Senate, leaving Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas the odd man out. Betty's the better candidate of the three, and was able to get the co-endorsement thanks to the Florida Education Association, which has a lot of clout in the state AFL-CIO. Castor is a former state education secretary, not to mention former president of the University of South Florida. She's been handling herself with class, rather quiet compared to Deutsch and Penelas, who dislike each other greatly and don't mind sharing that fact with the public. As for Penelas, many in the labor movement don't think much of him anyway because of how some were treated in Miami during the big summit last year by some of the area's law enforcement. When he appeared at the Polk County Democratic Executive Committee meeting in May while in the area for a debate before the local Tiger Bay Club, some of the local labor activists who are on the DEC were ready and waiting with some very pointed questions. To get the meeting moving, committee chairman L. Mark Kaylor had to eventually ask them to take their questions with Penelas outside, and asked the State Committeeman to meet with them to insure everything remained civil.

Watch Betty move on up...

And the local broadcast media continues to evolve. Of course, I worked in radio for 15 years here and in my native Mississippi, so I keep up with what's happening. It continues to amaze me how the locals are able to survive or attempt to do so located between not one but two major markets, Tampa/St. Petersburg and Orlando/Daytona Beach. With huge corporate titans such as Clear Channel, Cox, and Infinity dominating both markets, smaller companies really have a hard time of it in markets such as Lakeland/Winter Haven.

One station has gone from urban to Spanish and back to R&B/Urban in six months. And a former religious station is now leased by a right wing activist who is formerly the PR voice for the Polk County Sheriff's Office. She uses it to promote Bush/Cheney, The Christian Law Association, Dr. James Kennedy's group in South Florida, and various right wing entities during her two hour diatribe weekday afternoons, not to mention airing Michael Reagan and almost any other far right talker on the air except Rush (who is already taken in this market). We need more moderate and progressive voices on the air, and I'm not necessairly talking about far left, but responsible individuals who can discuss issues without screaming and going into endless mind games like some of these folks on both extremes do.