Florida
“”Florida?! But that's America's wang!
|
| —Homer J. Simpson |
Florida is the only American State where the further north you go, the farther "south" you get.[1] Thanks to an influx of immigrants, tourists, and Jews retirees from New York, Florida is a politically competitive state and is commonly considered a "bellwether" in national elections. It is also the easiest place in the US to get OxyContin.[2] Coincidentally, Rush Limbaugh lives there.
Contents |
[edit] Politics
[edit] State Politics
The current governor is Rick Scott, a hard-working former CEO of a large hospital network. Rick Scott is notable for spending over seventy-three million dollars of his own money on his campaign. He was elected and reelected despite having committed the largest Medicare/Medicaid fraud in the US and the largest financial fraud in Florida history.[3]
The previous governor of Florida was Charlie Christ Crist. Charlie was a moderate Republican, and as such his views seemed rather wishy-washy depending on who talked to him. Notably during his campaign as a Republican for US senator, he was staunchly pro-life, though after becoming an independent he was pro-choice. To his credit, however, Crist did a lot to help the Florida education system and the environment, particularly the Florida Everglades.
Crist was at one point considered a possible running mate for John McCain during the 2008 presidential election, and one must wonder whether the election would have turned out differently if he was a vice-presidential candidate instead of that crazy moose-shooting hockey mom.
[edit] Federal Politics
Florida, geographically part of the American South, is usually regarded as a red state, although it's more accurate to say that it's more purple, having gone blue in the last two presidential elections. Since 1992, all of its elections were decided by five points or less — with the lone exception of 1996, where Bill Clinton won by a decisive (albeit not overwhelming) 5.7 points. It turns out the large number of Medicare/Social Security-receiving senior citizens, young college and university students, Latino immigrants, and South Beach/Keys-dwelling gay folk in the more metropolitan areas of the state are more than sufficient to garner more votes than the traditional conservative remnants of the Confederacy that live in the Panhandle and Jacksonville area.[4] It is considered a swing state due to its large and growing population, and thus receives a lot of attention during the summers and autumns of election years.
Florida's genetic makeup is fascinating to many people; you could say the Sunshine State best exemplifies the various social and political divisions within America (sans the geography), so here's how it lays out. The Panhandle is home to Tallahassee, the largely forgettable capitol, populated by a bunch of angry ideological plutocrats who won their seats mostly by gerrymandering. The Panhandle is very much like the rest of the Deep South, hence why Republicans control the state legislature and largely ignore the peninsula. Many Floridians see the Panhandle as an alien construct that should be ceded to Alabama (it even has the same time zone as Alabama). About its only saving grace is that Tallahassee is home to Florida State University and the historically-black Florida A&M University, both of whom pride in their heavy research activity and their high standards of education. FSU even leads Florida in external funding for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. What is it doing perched up in the North and why isn't the rest of the Panhandle taking after it? We have no fucking idea.
Now head to the peninsula and you get North Florida, which is part of the Bible Belt, but less wingnut than the Panhandle. North Florida includes Gainesville (home to the University of Florida), Daytona Beach (home to the Daytona 500), and Jacksonville (the largest city), which controls the Duval county. Jacksonville is, bizarrely, a cultural melting pot, with a significant Muslim majority; a bunch of Asian, African, European, and Hispanic immigrants; and an African American Democratic mayor. Head down the rest of the peninsula and you get Central Florida, represented most of all by Orlando and Tampa Bay with Saint Petersburg; they are more reminiscent of the Midwest (say, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio), have a booming tech industry, a growing non-white population, and perfectly represent the Purple to the North's Red and the South's Blue, although lately, they're turning bluer by the day. South Florida is the main reason why the Sunshine State is steadily turning blue as a whole, with Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach having the highest concentration of the population in addition to a diverse variety of immigrants, tourists, retirees, and college students who largely dislike and oppose the Panhandle's grip on the state.
These inherent contradictions were most especially, and most infamously, found in 2000 when hanging chads and weird recount rules required the 2000 U.S. presidential election to be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in the court case Bush v. Gore. Controversial at the time were that then-governor Jeb Bush is one candidate's brother, and that then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris went on to work for the President Bush-the-Lesser after the court decided to prevent a recount.
[edit] Famous Floridanians
- Allen West
- Jeb Bush, governor during the Great Fuckup
- John Trasher, former Speaker of the State House and Chairman of the Florida Republican party. He concocted the largest tax cut in Florida history as Speaker, and as Chairman, the party swept the Florida Cabinet races, picked up four U.S. House seats, won a U.S. Senate race and delivered a two-thirds majority in the Legislature. It also survived a nasty gubernatorial primary and won a tight victory in the general election.
- Terry Jones, a very naughty boy
- Victoria Jackson, a
batshit crazyformer actress - Casey Anthony, possible murderer
- Ray Lewis, possible murderer
- Ted Bundy, serial killer
- Gerald Stano, serial killer
- Ottis Toole, serial killer
- Dexter Morgan, fictional serial killer
- "Dr." Kent Hovind, serial killer of science and convicted tax cheat
- George Zimmerman,
ticking time bombperson found not guilty of murder - Mickey Mouse, alleged murderer
- Rush Limbaugh — born in Missouri, but moved for the
Oxycontingolf - Lou Pearlman, convicted Ponzi schemer and '90s boy band mogul.
- Debra Lafave, teacher and convicted
adolescent male fantasysex offender who had sex with a 14-year old student - Rudy Eugene,
zombieconvicted face-eating cannibal - Paul Reubens, actor who showed his Pee Wee in a theater in Sarasota
- Pat Boone, pioneer of vanilla rock n' roll for your pastor that was stolen from more talented black musicians. Also once exposed his "little Richard".
- Fred Durst, unpleasant front man of Limp Bizkit
- Vanilla Ice, rap's equivalent of Pat Boone
Coincidentally, Florida is ranked 49th in mental health funding in the United States.
[edit] See also
| |
For those of you in the mood, RationalWiki has a fun article about Florida. |
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ This common phrase references the fact that the southern, peninsular part of Florida tends to resemble the northeast in its politics and social fabric, while the northern, panhandle part is more like the rest of the American South.
- ↑ The 'Oxy Express:' Florida's prescription drug abuse epidemic
- ↑ Stephen Barrett's Insurance Reform Watch and Quackwatch have more info on these and other juicy misadventures.
- ↑ Or, maybe, Florida is just bipolar. Even the conservative areas aren't very selectively conservative.
| The Bible Belt | |
| Alabama - Arkansas - Florida - Georgia Kansas - Kentucky - Louisiana - Mississippi Missouri - North Carolina - Oklahoma - South Carolina Tennessee - Texas - Virginia - West Virginia - Jesusland | |