Jim Stillman
M-Kaz
Skip the election.
October 21st 2008 20:25
The election of 2008, as in 2000, may well be determined by the average opinions of a handful of residents in Hillsborough County, Florida. Among the “swing states” those up for grabs, is Florida with its 27 electoral votes. Those votes were awarded to the Republicans last time by an overtly partisan Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, and an activist, equally partisan, United Supreme Court.
The result was a relatively small handful of voters determined that George W. Bush would be our president and Al Gore left to win the Nobel prize and an Oscar for his work to reduce global warming and other threats to the world.
The northern half of Florida is generally supporting the GOP; the southern half, Democrats. Within each area are enclaves of contrary viewpoints, the southwestern areas with high military retirement presence, the Duval County-Jacksonville area that is less doctrinaire conservative, and so forth.
The bell-weather residents along the I-4 corridor, a highway that bisects the state, west to east, from Hillsborough County and Tampa to Daytona Beach in Volusia County, will probably determine our next national leader. It has been estimated 38% of independents live along I-4. Richard Scher, from the University of Florida, said
So, who are we? We’re a microcosm, that’s for certain, contradictory, diverse, and somewhat hypocritical. In short, the average voter. Consider these facts:
We are culturally, economically, ethnically diverse, but the area is not so much a melting pot as it is a collection of groups. We got here from places like Jamaica and Cuba and Puerto Rico, and hang tiny flags from our rearview mirrors. On the west coast specifically, we are from states like Ohio and Michigan and Indiana, and retain to a large extent Midwestern values. Lately, Hillsborough County is being the new home for those from New Jersey and New York with less conservative values...
According to the Chamber of Commerce, in 2005 alone, 46,226 people from at least 483 counties across the country joined us and settled around Tampa Bay, in mobile home parks and turn-of-the-century bungalows and McMansions behind big gates. Nearby my home are two developments of $1 or 2 Million homes, all now dormant and empty. Downtown multi-million dollar condos are started then abandoned and sit vacant. There is confidence that this will change when the economy improves but for now, there is and it is Depression.
We have more nude and strip clubs that are said to identify our city. and county, a short bit north are several nudist communities. (I know that “nudist lifestyle” is healthy, non-prurient and so forth, except one has explicit advertisement suggesting otherwise.) While we deplore the strip clubs, one of the most famous of those is barely a mile from where we gather Sundays in the fall to watch the Buccaneers play football. The owner of this most famous of clubs has been the litigant in scores of suits brought by Tampa or by him arguing the restrictions imposed is unconstitutional. He almost always wins.
We still want more! During the 2005 football season, some entrepreneurs parked a motor home across from the stadium and girls named Ashlee and Carrie and Katrena gave gentlemen $20 lap dances until the cops stopped the fun.
The Hillsborough County Commission is obsessed with regulating strip clubs which do not exist in the unincorporated area. Recent ordinances require, among other things, 6 foot space between patron and employee and a requirement that strippers carry ID cards (where?).
We are a religious people. We have roughly 1,345 religious congregations that claim over1 million believers; including one of the country's largest evangelical churches and the worldwide headquarters of Scientology, We have an active and increasing Jewish population but bagels and lox are hard to come by.
We are a compassionate group for the most part, feeding the homeless while we drive them from public property.
We drink on average 5.41 cases of beer at home annually, and rank sixth in plastic cup consumption. Nearly half a million of us gather each year to celebrate a fictional pirate invasion, and 60,755 of us have permits to carry concealed weapons.
We have, according to a 2006 UCLA study, the fifth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian and bisexual residents of the top 50 metropolitan areas in the country, behind San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Portland, Ore. We also have a county commission that voted to ban county sponsorship of Gay Pride events.
We sport the largest Confederate flag in the world at the intersection of two major Interstate highways
Welcome to Tampa Bay. When you wake up on November 5th, we’ll tell you how we voted and who is to be the next leader of the free world.
The result was a relatively small handful of voters determined that George W. Bush would be our president and Al Gore left to win the Nobel prize and an Oscar for his work to reduce global warming and other threats to the world.
The northern half of Florida is generally supporting the GOP; the southern half, Democrats. Within each area are enclaves of contrary viewpoints, the southwestern areas with high military retirement presence, the Duval County-Jacksonville area that is less doctrinaire conservative, and so forth.
The bell-weather residents along the I-4 corridor, a highway that bisects the state, west to east, from Hillsborough County and Tampa to Daytona Beach in Volusia County, will probably determine our next national leader. It has been estimated 38% of independents live along I-4. Richard Scher, from the University of Florida, said
Someone suggested to me that the whole thing could come down to a couple square blocks in downtown Tampa, and that's not out of the question.
So, who are we? We’re a microcosm, that’s for certain, contradictory, diverse, and somewhat hypocritical. In short, the average voter. Consider these facts:
We are culturally, economically, ethnically diverse, but the area is not so much a melting pot as it is a collection of groups. We got here from places like Jamaica and Cuba and Puerto Rico, and hang tiny flags from our rearview mirrors. On the west coast specifically, we are from states like Ohio and Michigan and Indiana, and retain to a large extent Midwestern values. Lately, Hillsborough County is being the new home for those from New Jersey and New York with less conservative values...
According to the Chamber of Commerce, in 2005 alone, 46,226 people from at least 483 counties across the country joined us and settled around Tampa Bay, in mobile home parks and turn-of-the-century bungalows and McMansions behind big gates. Nearby my home are two developments of $1 or 2 Million homes, all now dormant and empty. Downtown multi-million dollar condos are started then abandoned and sit vacant. There is confidence that this will change when the economy improves but for now, there is and it is Depression.
We have more nude and strip clubs that are said to identify our city. and county, a short bit north are several nudist communities. (I know that “nudist lifestyle” is healthy, non-prurient and so forth, except one has explicit advertisement suggesting otherwise.) While we deplore the strip clubs, one of the most famous of those is barely a mile from where we gather Sundays in the fall to watch the Buccaneers play football. The owner of this most famous of clubs has been the litigant in scores of suits brought by Tampa or by him arguing the restrictions imposed is unconstitutional. He almost always wins.
We still want more! During the 2005 football season, some entrepreneurs parked a motor home across from the stadium and girls named Ashlee and Carrie and Katrena gave gentlemen $20 lap dances until the cops stopped the fun.
The Hillsborough County Commission is obsessed with regulating strip clubs which do not exist in the unincorporated area. Recent ordinances require, among other things, 6 foot space between patron and employee and a requirement that strippers carry ID cards (where?).
We are a religious people. We have roughly 1,345 religious congregations that claim over1 million believers; including one of the country's largest evangelical churches and the worldwide headquarters of Scientology, We have an active and increasing Jewish population but bagels and lox are hard to come by.
We are a compassionate group for the most part, feeding the homeless while we drive them from public property.
We drink on average 5.41 cases of beer at home annually, and rank sixth in plastic cup consumption. Nearly half a million of us gather each year to celebrate a fictional pirate invasion, and 60,755 of us have permits to carry concealed weapons.
We have, according to a 2006 UCLA study, the fifth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian and bisexual residents of the top 50 metropolitan areas in the country, behind San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Portland, Ore. We also have a county commission that voted to ban county sponsorship of Gay Pride events.
We sport the largest Confederate flag in the world at the intersection of two major Interstate highways
Welcome to Tampa Bay. When you wake up on November 5th, we’ll tell you how we voted and who is to be the next leader of the free world.
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