Orange County (FL) GOP increases early voting numbers; Democrats fall short

Just got a press release with the final numbers from early voting in Orange County and there are some very positive signs for Florida Republicans. 

Join Sandy Adams tomorrow for a major endorsement

Sandy Adams' campaign sent out a press release earlier today about an event tomorrow in Winter Park hosted by Tea Party Express, and Amy Kremer, the Chair, will be in attendance to announce the organization's latest Congressional endorsement.

I don't think this is really revealing anything, but it is safe to assume that if the announcement is being sent on Adams' campaign email, that the endorsement is for her. Tea Party Express will be joining Sarah Palin, Allen West, RedState's Erick Erickson, and many other conservative leaders and organizations in supporting Sandy Adams in the District 7 Republican primary.

I'll be there in Winter Park tomorrow. Hope you can join us! Here is the announcement:

Tonight: Re-election Campaign Kickoff for Winter Park Mayor Ken Bradley

Ken Bradley has been a great mayor for Winter Park and is running for reelection. He's earned my endorsement, and you should come meet him tonight from 6:00 to 7:30 pm at Hot Olives, 601 South New York Ave., in downtown Winter Park.

Map and more event details here

As always, you can find this and lots of other great events at the "Events" tab at the top right of this website.

Campaign Kickoff to Re-elect Winter Park Mayor Ken Bradley

Winter Park Mayor Ken Bradley is kicking off his re-election campaign next week. I proudly supported him in his first run for office in 2009, and I'm happy to endorse his reelection. Bradley deeply cares about Winter Park and has established himself as a tough advocate for fiscally conservative principles.


The election will be January 31, 2012, the same day as Florida's presidential primary. This decision to have the election on that day is saving the taxpayers about $30,000 (see what I mean about being a fiscal conservative?).

Here's all the details for for the campaign kickoff:

Karen Diebel launches new Congressional campaign

Former Winter Park City Commissioner and Verizon Business executive Karen Diebel has thrown her hat into the ring to run for the newly-designated Congressional District 26, which will be located in the Central Florida area due to population gains in the last Census.

I was proud to be a part of Karen's 2010 campaign team and look forward to seeing her continue her fight for conservative causes in this new election.

Winter Park Mayor Ken Bradley and I were quoted in a Winter Park/Maitland Observer article about Karen's campaign:

Winter Park/Maitland Observer | Diebel's Early Bid for Congress

Former Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel is already in the running for a new congressional seat that has yet to be created…

Diebel’s plan is to fill whatever new seat is added in the Central Florida area. This will be her second run at Congress in two years after narrowly losing in a Republican primary to Sandy Adams, the eventual winner of Florida’s 24th District congressional seat in 2010.

“My reasons and motivation remain the same,” Diebel said. “I think we haven’t gotten the changes right going forward. I’d like to help with that.”

Winter Park Mayor Ken Bradley congratulated her on her candidacy and said he looks forward to seeing her campaign take shape.

“She’s a good listener, very cautious and concerned about financial situations and very mindful of making sure we don’t spend money needlessly,” Bradley said. “I’d love to have her in Congress representing us.” …

Regardless of the eventual shape of the district Diebel hopes to represent, Sarah Rumpf, a former campaign consultant for Diebel, said that she’s made an important move getting into the running first. “She’s done well to establish herself as the front-runner being out there first,” Rumpf said. “It’s not a guaranteed slam dunk that you win, but it’s a big advantage.”

Here's a short video recapping Karen's 2010 campaign and her plans for the 2012 election:


YouTube | karendiebel | Karen Diebel for Congress

Additionally, I'd like clarify two points that keep confusing some members of our local media:

First, contrary to the way some have reported it, District 26 does, in fact, exist. It is a real legal political entity. True, we do not know the precise borders yet, but we don't know the borders for any Congressional districts. Right now, I live in District 8, and Dan Webster is my Congressman. District 26 exists just as much as District 8 does. When the borders are finally drawn (and the litigation is over, sigh...), then we'll know what District 26 looks like, but calling it a "nonexistent" district is silly.

Second, Karen is running for an open seat. She is not challenging Sandy Adams, Dan Webster, or any other Republican incumbent. Period. Some have noted that, theoretically speaking, there is a possibility that the lines may be drawn in a way that would result in Adams or Webster getting placed in a different District than they are now. For example, Webster's home might end up in 26 instead of 8. In that case, if Webster does not move into the new boundaries for 8, he could then run for re-election from 26, and 8 would then become the "open" seat, so Karen would run for 8. In no case will Karen be challenging a current Republican Member of Congress. Anyone who is reporting that she is considering otherwise is lying or misinformed.

For more information about Karen Diebel:

Karen Diebel campaign website
Karen Diebel on Facebook
@KarenDiebel on Twitter

[Cross-posted at RedCounty]

More on Beth Dillaha's ethical problems

The Winter Park/Maitland Observer published their own article yesterday about former Winter Park City Commissioner Beth Dillaha's latest ethical problems:

Winter Park/Maitland Observer | Dillaha's mailer violated election law, state attorney says

The anti-Sarah Sprinkel mailer that went out before the March 8 election was commissioned by then-outgoing Winter Park City Commissioner Beth Dillaha, and it violated a state election law, according to the state attorney's office...

Community activist William Graves was listed as the financier of the mailer, but later said he was not behind it after a developer and former City Commission candidate threatened to sue him over its content. In an interview with the Observer in March, Graves declined to reveal the author of the mailer or where the money came from.

That secrecy frustrated [City Commissioner Steven] Leary, who spoke out against anonymous mailers at Monday's meeting. 

"Transparency and anonymity are contradictory," Leary said...

And in case you missed it, my blog post from yesterday:

Sunshine State Sarah | How to Speak Winter Parker: "Dillaha" Means "Hypocrite."

Next week, the Winter Park City Commission will be voting on a resolution to send to the Florida Elections Commission, condemning these anonymous mailers. As I noted yesterday, Pete Weldon's complaint is being sent to the FEC for further investigation.

Also, the letter from the State Attorney's investigator and the Observer article linked above both mention that the mailers "appear" to have complied with the statutorily required disclaimer. However, by my reading of the Florida Statutes, this is not the case.

I'm going to try and avoid getting into an overly complicated legal analysis, but in general, because the exact identities of the persons, companies, or organizations who paid for the mailer have not yet been disclosed, I cannot say specifically which statute would govern the mailer. Independent expenditures, electioneering communications, and political committees are the possibilities for how the mailer should have been organized, paid for, and reported. The bottom line is that all of the statutory disclaimer rules require disclosure of who paid for the ad, so providing false or misleading information in the disclaimer complies with neither the letter nor the spirit of Florida's election laws.

So, let's look at the actual language of the Florida Statutes. Here are the relevant subsections setting forth the disclaimer requirements for independent expenditures, electioneering communications, and political committees:

Independent expenditures:

Section 106.071(2). Any political advertisement paid for by an independent expenditure shall prominently state “Paid political advertisement paid for by (Name and address of person paying for advertisement) independently of any (candidate or committee).”

Electioneering communications:

Section 106.1439(1). Any electioneering communication, other than a telephone call, shall prominently state: “Paid electioneering communication paid for by (Name and address of person paying for the communication).”

Political committees:

Section 106.143(1)(c). Any political advertisement made pursuant to s. 106.021(3)(d) must be marked “paid political advertisement” or with the abbreviation “pd. pol. adv.” and must prominently state, “Paid for and sponsored by (name of person paying for political advertisement). Approved by (names of persons, party affiliation, and offices sought in the political advertisement).”

Note the words I've highlighted in bold. Florida law requires disclaimers in political advertisements to disclose the identity of who paid for it. Listing a fake name, or the name of a person who is not the actual one who paid for the advertisement does not comply with the Florida Statutes. 

Because the mailer that Beth Dillaha organized to attack Sarah Sprinkel listed William Graves in its disclaimer but he was not the one who actually paid for it, the mailer is not in compliance with the statutory disclaimer requirements.

How to Speak Winter Parker: "Dillaha" Means "Hypocrite."

Former Winter Park Commissioner Beth Dillaha (pictured, left), loves to tell other people how they should live their lives. Never content to simply disagree, she frequently accuses her opponents of being motivated by unethical causes.

Anyone who has followed Winter Park politics for any period of time can cite multiple examples of what the Winter Park/Maitland Observer has described as her practice of making "political enemies out of those who disagreed with her" (Staff Opinion, March 9, 2011). In her support for the failed Hometown Democracy constitutional amendment, she repeatedly accused those opposed to this growth-destroying measure as being in the pockets of developers and special interests (See, e.g., Winter Park/Maitland Observer, Letter to the Editor, January 28, 2010). You may remember my blog post from last year about Craig Miller's use of Dillaha's false attacks on Karen Diebel in a mail piece, and Pete Weldon has done an excellent job over the past few years documenting Dillaha's nasty little habit of claiming moral superiority while falsely attacking her opponents (see here, here and here).

Dillaha has been especially self-righteous on the issue of campaign finance, making a pledge in 2007 not to accept corporate contributions to her campaign, and to limit individual contributions to $250.00 (instead of the $500.00 which was the legal limit). Dillaha then turned around and violated her own campaign promise just a few months later, accepting $8,000.00 (almost 20% of her total contributions for the race) from companies controlled by former Winter Park Mayor David Strong. As she is wont to do, she then spun around again a few years later and pretended none of this had ever happened, arguing that corporate contributions and bundled contributions were unethical in 2009 when Winter Park was in the process of revising its Ethics Codes and election procedures.

...which brings us to this year. During the 2011 Winter Park City Commission elections, a mailer that attacked candidate Sarah Sprinkel was sent to approximately 8,000 Winter Park residents. The mailer had a disclaimer that said that "William Graves, 30458D George Mason Avenue, Winter Park, FL 32792" had paid for it, but Mr. Graves admitted that he was not actually behind the mailer, that someone else had created and paid for it ("Developer says he was defamed," Winter Park/Maitland Observer, March 16, 2011).

Florida's election laws require all political advertisements to clearly disclose who paid for them, and for regular campaign finance reports. In this case, the mailer attacking Sprinkel (1) did not have an honest disclaimer, and (2) no campaign finance reports were made disclosing who paid for the mailer.

[Side note: this is very similar to the issue that sent Doug Guetzloe to jail, sending out an anonymous attack mailer in a Winter Park city election. Hmmm...]

Pete Weldon filed a complaint with the Winter Park Police Department regarding the Sprinkel mailer, and the matter was referred to the Ninth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office for investigation. You can read Weldon's original complaint here and see the response from Roger Floyd's investigation here.

What the investigation by the State Attorney's Office revealed was that Beth Dillaha was behind the mailer attacking Sprinkel, that she had intentionally taken steps to keep the financial backers of the mailer anonymous, and that she had failed to file the proper reports to form a political organization and also failed to file any campaign finance reports whatsoever. (Note: the letter from Floyd to Winter Park Chief of Police asks whether Dillaha might have filed paperwork to form a political committee with the city; I confirmed this morning that she had not.)

Weldon forwarded a copy of his complaint and the response from the State Attorney's Office to the Winter Park City Commission on Friday, commenting:

It is a great disappointment to me and I trust to all Winter Park citizens to discover that [Beth Dillaha,] a Winter Park city commissioner, and one who has consistently brow beaten others for their perceived ethical lapses, is at the very least the coordinator of malicious, anonymous election mailers.

This matter is now being sent to the Florida Elections Commission for further investigation. Hopefully the City of Winter Park Ethics Board will also undertake its own investigation. These type of ugly, anonymous attacks have been going on in Winter Park for far too long. [Note that while I am not aware of any criminal charges being brought, there are procedures to pursue criminal investigations in connection with an FEC Complaint.]

By her own conduct, Dillaha has proven, once again, that she is an extremely unethical and hypocritical person. I have always been a strong advocate for transparency in election and campaign finance laws, and I am disgusted by her deliberate circumvention of laws designed to provide voters with fair and timely information about who is trying to influence our elections. Even if Dillaha discloses the names of her co-conspirators who paid for the mailer, it is now over three months since the election.

Beth Dillaha, and those who supported her in this unethical activity, should be ashamed.

Some local and state government internet resources

I've written before about the great job that the City of Orlando does managing its online presence, and I just wanted to share some other local and state government links I found today:

Florida House of Representatives Goes Mobile

The Florida House has long had a website at www.myfloridahouse.gov, and while there's a wealth of information offered on that site, it wasn't exactly mobile friendly.

No worries, today the House launched a mobile version of their site at http://mfhmobile.com. ("MFHmobile" stands for "My Florida House mobile.")

I tested the site on my Blackberry and it worked very well. Loaded quickly, easy to navigate. Here's the home screen:

[Hat tip: Saint Petersblog]

Winter Park Links

The City of Winter Park has also done a great job developing its online presence.

Pete Weldon posted on his website a list of useful links for Winter Park residents, including how to sign up for e-mail updates and emergency alerts from city government, and of course the City of Winter Park's Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Pete had this to say about Winter Park's efforts to provide information to its residents: "I am honored to live in a city that understands and lives up to the highest standards of government transparency. I encourage everyone to take advantage of these resources and to be informed about our city."
 

My plans for world domination are proceeding nicely...

One of my favorite cartoon shows was (still is!) Pinky and the Brain:


YouTube | Pinky and the Brain intro

The two mice were constantly engaged in plans to "take over the world," plans which, of course, went significantly awry every single time. If you've never watched the show, I highly recommend checking it out on YouTube or elsewhere. It's deliciously snarky and extremely quotable. ("Are you pondering what I'm pondering?")

A few years ago, South Park had an episode featuring characters called "Underpants Gnomes" who also had grand designs for dominance, but economically. Their grand business plan is as follows:

Phase 1: Collect underpants

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Profit

As you might expect, the Gnomes' scheme was also unsuccessful.

So what is the secret to world domination?  

Well, I can't claim to know how to take over the planet, but apparently I've been doing a halfway decent job taking over the internet.  A few weeks ago I became the most followed person on Twitter in Winter Park (Full Sail University, a fertility clinic, and a rock band T-shirt/merchandise company are ahead of me, but I'm the top-ranked individual).

Then, this Monday, I woke up to a larger-than-normal number of emails, text messages, Facebook messages, and Twitter alerts on my BlackBerry. "Uh-oh. What the heck happened while I was sleeping?!"

Well, Peter Schorsch at Saint Petersblog put together a list of "Florida's Top Political Tweeters" and apparently I made the list.  Cool. I clicked on one of the links from Twitter and read the article, and nearly fell over when I saw how high I had ranked.

The list was based on Klout.com scores, which are grades for Twitter accounts based on not just followers, but also influence - i.e., how often your tweets get replies or retweets. I've been pretty active with my Twitter account (@rumpfshaker - if you're not already following me, and geez, you should be), especially this past year, but didn't really have any perspective on how I ranked in comparison with other politicos around the state.

So, according to the Saint Petersblog list, the "Top Political Tweeters in Florida" are:

1. Democratic consultant Joy Reid
2. Republican consultant Rick Wilson
3. Jeb Bush
4. Sarah Rumpf
5. a tie between Progress Florida, Peter Schorsch (who made the list), and Senator Bill Nelson...

Wait. What?!

I'm number four?! Out of the whole darn state of Florida! Holy cow.

No, the movie's not about me. But maybe it should be!

Here's the entire list...you should see a lot of very familiar names:
Florida's Top Political Tweeters

Charlie Sheen may have a world record for fastest time to reach 1 million followers on Twitter, but I am completely satisfied with my 1,400+ followers (as of today) and my non-fried brain cells, thank you very much.

So what's my secret? Is there an underpants gnome-like "Phase 1. Join Twitter, Phase 2. ?, Phase 3. Win teh Internets!" plan?

Not really. I've built up those followers little by little, step by step, day by day. I follow people I find interesting or funny, and interact with them, and try to respond when people interact with me. I retweet well-written articles and use hashtags strategically. Collecting followers on Twitter is not that much different strategically than making friends in real life. Be friendly, be helpful, be informative, be entertaining, and people will want to hear what you have to say.

It may also help that I have a somewhat silly but definitely memorable username. If you're not getting the reference, then look up a certain hit single by the early 1990s rap group Wreckx-N-Effect. I'm doing the best I can with a clunky last name.

Link to Orlando Sentinel "Tech for the rest of us" blog post by Sarah Lundy about the Top Florida Political Tweeters

Sarah Sprinkel for Winter Park City Commission

...a little local politics for you while I work on some commentary about the state and national political scene...

Local educator, community leader, and all-around "Superwoman" Sarah Sprinkel is running for the Winter Park City Commission.  I got to know Sarah when we were both selected in the inaugural class for BusinessForce's Political Leadership Institute, and she impressed the heck out of me.  She's smart, sincere, and one of the nicest people you'll met (especially in politics, haha).  Sarah has a lot of energy and a great work ethic.   She's been a wonderful asset for our local community for a long time and I'm excited that she has decided to throw her hat in the ring.

No matter what, the people of Winter Park are going to be winners because Beth Dillaha (ugh...just read some of Pete Weldon's blog here, here, and here) has decided not to run for re-election, but Sarah Sprinkel truly is going to be a great representative on the Winter Park City Commission.

Here is a video of Sarah announcing her candidacy at Central Park last month:

YouTube | Elect Sarah Sprinkel | Sarah Sprinkel's announcement to run for Winter Park City Commission

You can meet Sarah on Wednesday, January 5th, at Palmano's (331 Park Avenue, Winter Park) from 5:00 to 6:30 pm.  See Facebook event page here.

Sarah Sprinkel campaign website
Facebook: Elect Sarah Sprinkel
Twitter: @electsarah