florida Archives

Friday

April 3, 2020

A tale of three dogs

Florida Hullo, readers. I’m down Florida way for a bit of warm weather. The Bermuda Race Organizing Committee has been commandeered by a coterie of crapulous ingrates, leaving your correspondent on the outs. Nothing a little R&R can’t cure, but I’m sour. I hate trekking up to Newport for nothing. I’m in no mood for correspondence, but an interested reader inquired some days ago how I fell into journalism. I shall endeavor to answer. Stick me on a psychiatrist’s sofa and I’ll happily discuss my lifelong love of loquacity. It maddened Mother, who labeled me an ‘ecstatic’ child. She would be equal parts unsurprised and appalled by this hobby. Fortunately she doesn’t read this magazine.

F.H. Buckley

Coronavirus could hasten secession

Americans enjoyed a tremendous sense of solidarity in the days following 9/11. People gathered on street corners, at subway stops, holding small candles, and for a time we quite forgot about politics. I had expected something like this to happen now, during the corona pandemic. But it hasn’t, and this has made me think that the country’s breakup is even more likely than I had thought when my book, American Secession, was published in January. One difference, of course, is that we’re not supposed to be together during an pandemic. We’re supposed to be six feet apart, the length of a hockey stick. We don’t do group hugs anymore. If you’re a misanthrope, these are the glory days.

Tuesday

March 17, 2020

Amber Duke

Biden bus rolls over Bernie in Florida, Illinois and Arizona

Joe Biden is projected to win all three states that voted in the Democratic primary on Tuesday night, advancing his delegate lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders. Biden won Florida by a wide margin, garnering nearly 62 percent of the vote compared to Sanders’s 23 percent. Hillary Clinton defeated Sanders by a similar margin in 2016. Florida awards 219 delegates proportionally, putting Biden that much closer to the 1,991 delegates required to secure the nomination in the first round of voting at the Democratic National Convention. Poll workers in Florida noted lower turnout than usual due to fears over the coronavirus, a phenomenon that could have hurt Biden due to his popularity among older voters.

Wednesday

February 12, 2020

Amber Duke

Where was the media on this act of political violence?

The media frets constantly that President Donald Trump’s rhetoric will lead to violence against Democrats and even — the horror! — journalists. But the same media is curiously silent when Republicans become the targets of hate. On Saturday, for instance, a Florida man drove his van through a Trump campaign volunteer tent because, as he told police, ‘someone had to take a stand’. The incident started when the man drove his van slowly up to the tent, according to a police report. Two volunteers approached the man’s van to chat with him when ‘the vehicle accelerated towards them and the tent.’ ‘Both victims had to move out of the way quickly in order to prevent themselves from being struck by the vehicle.

Saturday

December 7, 2019

Elisa Segrave

My wild Key West

This article is in The Spectator’s December 2019 US edition. Subscribe here. Key West was originally called Cayo Hueso (Bone Island in Spanish) either for its bleached limestone rock or because the Calusa Indians used it as a burial ground. The first European here was Spain’s Ponce de León in 1521, on his spiritual quest for the Fountain of Youth. Lt Cmdr Matthew Perry planted the American flag on March 25, 1822. By the 1880s, Key West was the richest town in Florida. I first came on a Greyhound in November 1977. I knew no one. An American boyfriend in London had talked about breakfasting with fishermen, and of the Southern writer who was his mentor.

Wednesday

June 19, 2019

Curt Mills

Trumpworld Orlando, where dreams come true

Why did Donald Trump choose Orlando, near Disney World, for his campaign kickoff Tuesday night? Because he appears to be living in a fantasy land.Trump reached the White House by promising a border wall, a national industrial policy and a restrained foreign policy. He has delivered near none of those things, but the Mickey Mouse president is running for re-election anyway.Trump repeated some familiar cartoons on Tuesday, ridiculing Hillary Clinton a mere three years after defeating her. But it was a night for the hits. He also served up an old slapstick favorite, claiming that the media deflate his crowd sizes. The New York Times confirmed the number in attendance to be north of 20,000. Trump's goofy claim that there were 'over 100,000 requests' to get in remains unconfirmed.

Sunday

November 18, 2018

Daniel McCarthy

The way Trump wins again

For all the good news 2018’s midterms have given Democrats — a House majority, a Senate seat from Arizona, seven more governorships, and an all-blue congressional delegation from Orange County — they have also shown that President Trump has a clear path to re-election in 2020. Midterms historically maximize the relative turnout for the opposition party. More voters overall will go to the polls in 2020 than did so this year, just as more people voted in 2016 than did so this November. But the ratio of Democrats to Republicans will be narrower, if the past anything to go by.

Tuesday

November 6, 2018

Curt Mills

As Florida goes, so goes the nation?

With over 90 percent reporting, Ron DeSantis is not … messing… this up. The controversial, Trumpite Florida gubernatorial candidate has made the race for the Sunshine State a real fight. Nearly two hours in, the election remains extremely unclear. But the Republican is up in the Governor’s race, which is something of a surprise. And if Rick Scott were to steal a Senate senate for the Grand Old Party, and Congressman DeSantis were to replace him in Tallahassee, it could be a harbinger for a shock night of upset for the GOP. Florida was the true beginning of the crescendo for the Republicans in 2016. Florida went – then the Blue Wall: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio.