Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Unlucky 13

By Baxter

We cats are tempted to discuss Bridgegate again, thanks to yesterday's court appearance of a haggard and unsmiling Bridget Kelly. But we have a few things to say about the special election for Florida's 13th Congressional district.

Was it a bellwether? Meh. The district is Republican, and the results were much too close to give Republicans the breathing room they'd prefer. The 13th is a former GOP bastion now split almost completely down the middle, which is encouraging. Still, we're getting awfully tired of Alex Sink's inability to win.

But we have to hang this one not only on Sink but around the neck of the entire Democratic establishment. A perfectly good candidate, Jessica Ehrlich, was chased from this special election to make room for Florida's almost-Democratic Governor.

In retrospect, one has to wonder why. Ehrlich, who is from St. Petersburg, ran for the seat in 2012 and lost. But that was against Bill Young — his last re-election before checking out last October. There's nothing like running for Congress once when it comes to laying a solid foundation for running again. Which Jessica was all set to do until the Democrats decided on Sink.

Unnecessary self-inflicted wounds like this drive us cats crazy. But before we HISS and dump a dirty litter box on somebody, we want to say that we hope Ehrlich runs against David Jolly in the fall. In fact, if she sends us a fundraising e-mail today, we'll shoot her a couple of bucks.

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