I'm enjoying reading the Sunday Kos symposium on the primary season post-mortem.  It's clear from this - and the Sunday New York Times Op-Ed Symposium on the same topic - that there are a thousand reasons why things resulted in the way they did.

Borrowing a line from my fellow Central Floridian DarkSyde, let us not forget the criticality of the fourth dimension...

Tonight, for the third time in 15 months, a once-solid Republican seat in the Florida House of Representatives has changed hands to the Democrats here in East Central Florida.  This time it was exceptionally colorful, and quite close...

...again.

Early voting started yesterday for the Florida Presidential Preference Primary, which will end with statewide polling on January 29th. Despite it being a brutally cold day (59 degrees), I decided to make a mad dash to the heated car in the usual Florida garb - short sleeve shirt, light pants, no jacket.  I survived.

For whom did I vote?  Cross the break...

In the off-year elections of 2005, the surprisingly strong wins by Tim Kaine in Virginia and Jon Corzine in New Jersey were signals of change providing the first indication of the Democratic sweep to come in 2006.  Less well noticed, but caught by Our Great Orange Masterwere the State Legislature pickups by Democrats on Long Island.  When momentum builds for change, it manifests itself down-ticket just as well as in the high-profile races.  And momentum is out there right now.  We’re about to turn a healthy chunk of a red county in the nation’s fourth most populous state blue for the first time in decades.  So while you’re watching Kentucky choose a Democratic governor tomorrow, here’s another race to follow:

A tropical wave has been passing across Central Florida today and is headed west out over Gulf waters.  If it intensifies as predicted, it will become Tropical Depression Ten on Thursday and Tropical Storm Jerry by Thursday night.  

More on the flip...

Any effort to restrict funding for the war in Iraq will be framed as cutting support for the troops.  The distinctions between various appropriations schemes that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid come up with to try and blunt the escalation funding will be lost on the average American.  

So the problem is how to tie funding - especially for the escalation - directly to a target people can point to simply...

Crappy weather!

Tomorrow's forecast can be found here for the nation.  Just mouse over the Tuesday line for temperature and probability of precipitation.  The Pacific Northwest, western Montana, and Dixie look to be in for the worst.  Coastal cities in the Pacific Northwest are the Democratic regions I believe, so that doesn't help us at all.  Montanans: where is Tester's base?  Hopefully not in the Bitterroots.

For my wonderfully eccentric state of Florida (readers add their own adjectives here), follow me over the flip...

Tropical Storm Ernesto is strengthening in the eastern Caribbean and is on track to enter the Gulf of Mexico in two days.  Conditions appear to be favorable for development into a major hurricane (Saffir-Simpson category 3 or higher).  Computer model tracks begin to diverge at 3 days out (Tuesday Aug. 29), but once a storm enters the Gulf, it's going to make landfall somewhere.

Here is a good site for long-range forecasts.  Note that the track of Ernesto only grazes land features briefly, staying mostly over water, before getting into the Gulf.  More on the flip...

The fifty-state tracking poll data for Bush's job approval from SUSA for July has just been released here:

http://www.surveyusa.com/...

There are only two states with an over-50% rating (ID and UT).  This matches Bush's low in May, before the Zarqawi killing.  Only four states with a net (approval minus disapproval) above zero.

Last July (2005) SUSA did not publish a presidential job approval data set, so I was surprised to see them do it this year.

The Orlando Sentinel is a Tribune Company newspaper that pretty consistently slants to the right in its coverage, and especially on its opinion pages.  This despite Orlando and Orange County Florida trending Democratic (narrow pluralities voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 in the county).  I keep up with the editorial pages and occasionally contribute a Letter to the Editor.

I want to share a letter I read this morning with the dKos community.  It struck me as interesting regarding this year's elections.

It's pretty short - catch it on the flip...

Kos community,
Let's get together and give old Karl a sweet sendoff.  Poems, songs ("Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" is already taken), prose, whatever.  I was inspired by Scooter Libby's note to Judy Miller. Maybe I should have included ol' Scoot as well, but I'll leave it up to you all.   Herewith:

March on, chubby frog;
The leaves change color and fall,
Good-bye architect!

Friday night and I am watching "NOW With Bill Moyers" on PBS, and Kevin Phillips mentions that in July 2001, the Bush Administration set up an expedited visa system for Saudi nationals to enter the US.  I vaguely remember that fact, but what I didn't know is, according to Phillips, three of the 19 hijackers entered the US on that visa program, which required no photograph!  I am wondering if this fact is widely known and I am just awakening from my ignorance, or maybe this is another contributing factor to the collection of missed opportunities pre-9/11.

Folks please enlighten me if you knew this.

Many thanks and Cheers,

Greg in FL