Watching last night's election results pour in, Banana Republican could only take solace that Dorrin Rolle is no longer a Miami-Dade County commissioner and that state legislators will no longer have the ability to draw their own districts. Other than that, the 2010 election was a complete buzz kill.
While votes are still being tallied in governor's race, it looks like Tea Party favorite and multimillionaire Rick Scott has beaten Democrat Alex Sink, punctuating the GOP's sweeping victory across Florida.
As one of our friends noted, "we lead the nation in Medicare fraud, so it stands to reason that we have a Medicare cheat as our leader." Scott spent $73 million of his own money and overcame questions about his shady background. Throughout the campaign he was dogged by his past leadership of a hospital network that paid a record $1.7 billion fine to settle federal criminal charges of Medicaid and Medicare fraud. He left the company before the settlement and was never charged with a crime.
But that didn't seem to bother folks who voted for the Naples resident, who only moved there three years ago. "I figured let's see what a business guy can do for Florida than a career politician," said another friend who punched her number for Scott. Ugh.
More surprising was David Rivera's margin of victory over Joe Garcia for the 25th Congressional district. Rivera walloped Garcia by ten percentage points. Two years ago, the Cuban American Democrat gave Mario Diaz-Balart a scare by coming with single digits of unseating him. With Diaz-Balart running for his brother Lincoln's vacated seat, Garcia was poised to capitalize on his 2008 gains against the state legislator with a selective memory.
Yet despite his attacks on Rivera's evasiveness about his personal income and ties to a Cuban American businessman who facilitates business ventures with Castro's regime, Garcia couldn't overcome the Republican get-out-the-vote machine.
Although election night wasn't a total bummer. For the first time in 16 years, a county commission incumbent lost. Haitian American Jean Monestime unseated Rolle. And amendments 5 and 6 passed which means state lawmakers can no longer gerrymander districts to ensure they continue getting elected.
