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...
A $70 billion tax cut is just the latest "gift" from President Bush and the Republicans in Congress. It saves approximately $42,000 on a million-dollar income, and $49 on an average American's income.
And that's just the latest "gift" Americans have received over the past five-plus years from our leaders in Washington.
I've been a lifelong Republican, but as someone once said, "I didn't leave my party; my party left me." Along with millions of other Americans, I can't wait to vote in this November's election.
ED HAVILL
Mount Dora
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In his recent AEI speech and comments, Karl Rove blamed the sour mood of the country on Iraq. Certainly that's part of it, but as this letter shows, it's not the whole story.
I think there's a fundamental pragmatism in the American spirit. People respond favorably to getting things done, and that feeling cuts across a lot of the political spectrum. But people have been fed a diet of fear and worry for six years, coupled with grand waste and incompetence, and are beginning to grumble.
I don't believe a "liberal" label carries the weight with the general electorate that it once may have. Just simply a candidate - or slate - with a new plan, that holds the potential to solve problems (job security, health care, and opportunity come to mind) will stand a surprisingly good chance, even in a gerrymandered state like Florida.
Florida is a very evenly-split state in terms of party affiliation. But the legislators who drew their districts in 2000 did a good job to ensure one-party dominance this decade. But to successfully gerrymander, you need to pack the Democrats in a few districts and create a large number of 55-45 Republican districts. That technique (and the relative lack of highly-skewed Republican districts) may come back to bite the Republicans if sufficient numbers of the Ed Havills of this state get mad enough.