Eight Candidates for Florida Governor; 17 for U. S. Senator from Florida

To listen to the TV ads, two candidates' names will appear on the Florida gubernatorial ballot and three candidates' names will be on the ballot for U. S. Senator from Florida.


Think again.


Eight candidates and their running mates have filed and qualified as gubernatorial candidates; 17 candidates have qualified to run for U. S. Senator. Not all the names will appear on the ballots because several are write-in candidates. But all the people listed below have taken the time to file the paperwork in order to be a legitimate candidate. Many of the people listed below have paid thousands of dollars in filing fees to the State of Florida.


Oughtn't we at least recognize their initiative and courage?


[Thank you to Pinellas County's Supervisor of Elections, Deborah Clark, who makes this information available -- with links to each candidate's filing information on the Florida Supervisor of Elections' site.]


In alphabetical order, then, which is the NOT same way they will appear on the ballot, the gubernatorial candidates are:

• Peter Allen / John E. Zanni (The Independence Party of Florida / IDP), of Riverview, can be reached at  (813) 671-3122. Allen paid the state a filing fee of $7816.38.
• Michael E. Arth / Al Krulick (NPA), from DeLand, can be reached at  (386) 738-2230. Arth paid the state a filing fee of $5,210.92.
• Daniel Imperato / Karl C. C. Behm (NPA), from West Palm Beach can be reached at (561) 317-3210. Imperato paid the state a filing fee of $5,210.92.
• Farid Khavari / Darcy G. Richardson (NPA), from Miami, can be reached at (786) 286-6697. Khavari paid the state a filing fee of $5,210.92.
• Josue Larose / Valencia St. Louis (DEM / WRI), from Fort Lauderdale, does not list a phone number on the Florida Election Divisions' Candidate Tracking System page.  No fee.
• C. C. Reed / Larry Waldo, Sr. (NPA), from Miami, can be reached at (786) 715-9338. Reed paid the state a filing fee of $5,210.92.
• Rick Scott / Jennifer Carroll (REP), from Naples, does not list a phone number on the Florida Election Divisions' Candidate Tracking System page. Scott paid the state a filing fee of $7,816.38. 
• Alex Sink / Rod Smith (DEM), from Tampa, does not list a phone number on the Florida Election Divisions' Candidate Tracking System page.  Sink paid the state a filing fee of $7, 816.38.

Write-in (WRI) candidates for U. S. Senate pay no filing fee. Candidates with No Party Affiliation (NPA) pay $6,960. Candidates with a party affiliation pay $10, 440 -- unless the candidate qualifies by collecting enough signatures on a petition. The 17 candidates for U. S. Senator and their email addresses are:

• Lewis Jerome Armstrong (NPA), from Jacksonville, can be reached at (904) 771-0809. Armstrong paid the state a filing fee of $6,960. 
• Sue Askeland (NPA), from Stuart,  can be reached at (772) 287-9178. Askeland paid the state a filing fee of $6,960.
• Bobbie Bean (NPA), from Sebring, can be reached at (863) 385-2229. Bean paid the state a filing fee of $6,960.
• Piotr Blass (WRI), from Boynton Beach, can be reached at (561) 523-170. No fee.
• Charlie Crist (NPA), from Tallahassee/St. Petersburg, can be reached at (727) 498-5806. Crist paid the state a filing fee of $6,960.
• Bernie DeCastro (Constitution Party of Florida/CPF), from Ocala, can be reached at (352) 867-8877. DeCastro paid the state a filing fee of $10,440.
• George Drake (WRI), from Orlando, can be reached at  (407) 859-7191. No fee.
• Howard Knepper (WRI), from North Miami Beach, can be reached at (305) 948-3525. No fee.
• Carol Ann Joyce LaRosa (WRI), from Engelwood, can be reached at  (941) 473-3056. No fee.
• Richard Lock (WRI), from Sarasota, can be reached at (727) 410-3305. No fee.
• Kendrick B. Meek (Democratic Party/DEM), from Miami, can be reached at (305) 655-3213. No fee -- qualified by petition.
• Robert Monroe (WRI), from Oviedo, can be reached at (407) 492-8189. No fee.
• Belinda Gail Quarterman-Noah (WRI), from Tampa, can be reached at (813) 388-6755. No fee.
• Bruce Ray Riggs (NPA), from Crystal River, can be reached at  (352) 364-1928. Riggs paid the state a filing fee of $6,960.
• Marco Rubio (Republican Party/REP), from Coral Gables,  does not list a phone number on the Florida Election Divisions' Candidate Tracking System page. Rubio paid the state a filing fee of $10,440.
• Alexander Andrew Snitker (Libertarian/LIB), of Spring Hill, can be reached at (727) 424-9530. Snitker paid the state a filing fee of $10,440.
• Rick Tyler (NPA), of Pensacola, can be reached at (850) 417-488. Tyler paid the state a filing fee of $6,960.

 Puts a little different spin on things, doesn't it?

Major Parties in Minority?

Left: Almost one-fifth of Florida's registered voters claim no party affiliation. In Massachusetts, slightly more than half claim no party affiliation. Graph source: Florida Division of Elections

Today's so-called major political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican National Committee, might want to take a lesson from King George III, who discounted the American colonies with famous results. A few 18th century discontented colonists in Massachusetts changed world history. More than a few 21st century discontented voters in Massachusetts, and in other states, may be signaling the coming of an equally revolutionary change.

When Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown won last month's special election to fill what had been, for almost half a century, Democrat Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, many people viewed it as revolutionary a development as that which began 200-some years ago at Lexington and Concord. A Time magazine article, for instance, quoted some as calling it "the Scott heard round [sic] the world."

Not only did a Republican take a Democrat's seat, Brown's election tipped the power scales in the U.S. Senate. Yes, the Democrats still have a majority of seats -- 59 to 41. In a simple majority vote, assuming all senators of each party vote the same way and in opposition to the other party, the Republicans still don't have enough votes to defeat the Democrats.

But not all votes are simple majority votes. For instance, two-thirds, or 60, of the Senators must agree to stop a filibuster, a tactic that delays decisions from being made. That may not be so easy now that only 59 U. S. Senators are Democrats.

A January 16, 2010, Christian Science Monitor article hinted at an even bigger tipping of power: Among registered voters in Massachusetts, the article says, 51% are "unenrolled." That means more than half the registered voters in one of the founding states in the union -- technically, it's the Commonwealth of Masschusetts -- are not registered with any political party. 

Historically, large numbers of registered voters have not claimed either of the major parties.

According to Massachusetts Registered Voter Enrollment: 1948-2004, a report found on the Massachusetts' Secretary of the Commonwealth's Web site, there were 2.485 million registered voters in the Massachusetts in 1948. Democrats accounted for 25.46% of the registered voters, 25.30% of voters registered as Republicans, and 49.25% -- almost half -- were unenrolled.

In 1958, during the time when John F. Kennedy represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Sentate (1953-1960), 31.03% of the state's 2.556 million voters were registered as Democrats, 26.16% were registered as Republicans, and 42.01% -- still more than in either of the so-called major parties -- were registered as unenrolled.

In 1968, six years after Ted Kennedy was elected to his first term as a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Democrats claimed 43.13% of the state's registered voters. Republicans claimed 21.52% of the voters, but 35.34% of the voters still were unenrolled.

The percentage of unenrolled voters has steadily increased. In February 2000, 50.32% of registered voters in Massachusetts were unenrolled, and in January 2008 50.34% -- slightly more than in the two major parties combined -- were unenrolled. One Massachusetts county, Franklin, had 57.99% unenrolled voters in January 2008.

"Unenrolled" should not be confused with any of the officially registered "third" parties -- also a misnomer. In Florida, for instance, there are 33 officially registered political parties other than the two "major" parties (as of December, 2009). Thirteen of those parties had enough wherewithal to have a candidate on Florida's 2008 presidential election ballot.

Nor should the term "independent" be used, as several minor parties use the word "independent" in their name. America's Independent Party of Florida (AIP), the Independence Party of Florida (IDP), Independent Democrats of Florida (IDF), and the Independent Party of Florida (INT) have all officially registered in Florida. The National Independent American Party currently is "seeking to organize in Florida," according to its Web site.

The number of unaffiliated voters in Florida has also risen. A pie chart on the Florida Division of Elections' Web site, shows 19% of registered voters unaffiliated, 3% registered with minor parties, 36% registered as Republicans, and 42% registered as Democrats, as of November 2009.

In 1972, only 3.37% of Florida's registered voters did not affiliate with either the Republicans or Democrats.

In Pinellas County, whose Supervisor of Elections office updates the registration information daily on their Web site's home page, the December 2009 voter registration report showed 38.82% of the county's 599,720 voters registered as Democrats, 36.65% registered as Republicans, 19.24% with no party affiliation, and 5.27% registered with other parties.

According to the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections' office, the minor parties with the largest number of registered voters were the Independent Party of Florida (INT) with just over 20,200 registrants, the Independence Party of Florida (IDP) with just over 3,000 registrants and the Libertarian Party of Florida (LIB) with just over 1,300 registrants.

Almost 5,000 registered voters in Pinellas County are designated as Unknown (UNK), usually because they didn't indicate an affiliation with any of the registered parties nor did they mark the "no party affiliation" option.

None of this, of course, takes into account the large number of adults who are eligible to vote, but haven't registered at all.

Still, while Scott Brown's election may have been "the Scott heard round the world," a new American revolution may have been quietly brewing for decades.

"A Cinderella Story" Sizzles, Swings, and Scat-a-tat-tats

The spoiled stepsisters learn to dance at an Arthur Murray studio, Handsome Hunk Charming swaggers ala The Fonz and the heroine is saved by her pet poodle? Wowza!

Forget Prokofiev's ballet, forget Disney's cartoon, and forget Rodgers and Hammerstein's made-for-television musical. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet's A Cinderella Story, presented recently at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Fla., is about as traditional a rendition of the fairytale as West Side Story is of Romeo and Juliet. Although the RWB cast performs pirouettes aplenty and arabesques with abandon, and although the music -- oh, the music! -- is indeed by Richard Rodgers, this version, which debuted in 2004, stands firmly on its own slippered merits.

(Also forget a 2004 movie by the same name. No relation whatsoever.)

For starters, the set -- designed, as were the costumes, by Sandra Woodall -- is decidedly not misty-past European. Think instead Frank Lloyd Wright-ish upscale 1950s, lines and circles everywhere, a cabinet television topped with rabbit-ear anntenna, a sunburst wall clock, and a touch of neon.

Plopped in front of the TV, a girl named Nancy (Serena Sandford), "whose life is like a Cinderella story," according to the program notes, and her dog (Yosuke Mino) have just tuned in to the 1957 premiere performance of the R&H Cinderella. When Nancy's father (RWB senior ballet master Johnny W. Chang) brings home a new witch -- er, wife (Tara Birtwhistle) -- and her two daughters (Emily Grizzell and Chelsey Lindsay), it's easy to see where the story, codified in 1697 by French writer Charles Perrault, is headed.

How it gets there is another matter altogether -- a marvelously inventive matter of the combined talents of artistic director Andre' Lewis, choreographer Val Caniparoli, and arranger Ron Paley. The three pay homage to the 1957 production, playing snippets of the original sound track, including a bit by Julie Andrews, then turn the story on edge and en pointe to a score that sizzles, swings, and scat-a-tat-tats.

Arranger Ron Paley took Richard Rodgers' tunes such as "This Can't Be Love," "The Lady is a Tramp" and "Blue Moon" -- most written between 1926 and 1947 when he partnered with lyricist Lorenz Hart -- and turned them into big band jazz arrangements. Paley and his nine-piece band pair with Caniparoli's jazzlet? bajazz? which blends moves with the carriage and precision of ballet with the looser-jointed moves of jazz into a smooth-as-cayenne-blossom-honey sensation.

It more than works.

Tuesday's opening number featured the Butler's (Alexander Gamayunov) effortless entrechats with a soft-shoe feel to an a cappella scat tune sung by a gravelly-voiced Paley. Hero Bob (Gael Lambiotte) made the girls swoon as he swaggered into the Starlight Ballroom, then guided Nancy through a pas de deux as reminiscent of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as of Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. Ensemble numbers combined catch steps and jazz walks with coupés and jetés.

All of which means the dancers have to be versatile, strong and quick. It can't be easy to slink one's way on stage and then step in to an en pointe attitude or to time fouettés en tournant to a funky jazz riff. But the RWB dancers made it look oh-so-easy. Even more, they looked like they were having a blast.

Wowza!

[Photos courtesy of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. For a more personal take on this performance, go to Just The Write Touch. Also check out the short video interviews with Val Caniparoli, Ron Paley, and some of the performers on YouTube or at the RWB Web site.)