For months I’ve remarked to friends and associates about this year’s campaign being the least energetic that I can ever remember in a Florida gubernatorial election year – al least until the last 3 weeks or so.  Anyway, my picks (based on worldview, not predictions):

Governor:  Tom Gallagher is the clear outspoken leader on pro-life issues – an endorsement for Crist by Gov. Jeb notwithstanding.  I have not researched two dark-horse candidates (Vernon Palmer and Mike St. Jean).

US Senator:  Either Katherine Harris or her strongest opponent, Will McBride, will be an underdog against Bill Nelson in November.  Between those two I have to go with McBride, mainly because…I KNOW HIM!  He was in grade school when I first attended his church in the early 1980s (Hillsdale Baptist).  His dad was the Spanish Pastor at the time.  Recent developments with Harris (i.e. the contoversial campaign contributions) also raise the question of vulnerability to political pressure in the Senate. 

Chief Financial Officer: Between Tom Lee and Randy Johnson, the latter carries the day with me, again notwithstanding a Bush endorsement of Lee for his “contrarian and proud of it” posturing.  Commendable, yes, but Johnson seems to have a better handle on the fundamental problem with excessive government regulation being the true cause of the “insurance crisis” (See my earlier post on this topic).  Regrettably, deregulation would likely have very painful short-term (maybe longer) consequences for many homeowners, as companies “red-lined” properties they considered too risky to insure, leaving many unable to obtain insurance.  However, at least in a truly free market, there will always be companies willing to insure at least some properties  – when companies are allowed to do business in the state in the first place!

The Tampa Tribune/TBO continues to run letters from homeowners either being priced out of the insurance market, or unable to find insurance, period. Meanwhile, this St. Pete Times editorial interestingly comments that “government is seldom blamed for the problem”. Perhaps if there were LESS government regulation, insurers would’t be forced to, for example, cover high-risk homes (due to proscription of “redlining”, which would allow insurance companies to deny coverage to such homes, while providing coverage to lower-risk homes in the same zone). Oh, but we wouldn’t want Citizens or FEMA to get out of the insurance business now, would we?

The Information Radio Network this week had Jerome Corsi, co-author of a new book Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders, as a guest on their show “News and Views”. I would suggest that you visit spp.gov to get an idea of what America’s future looks like within the next 10 years. To wit, the “Report to Leaders”:

“To make North America secure for the future, we need integrated, coordinated and seamless measures in place at, within, and beyond our borders to provide our people and our infrastructure with the highest possible common level of protection from terrorists and other criminal elements, as well as from the common threats of nature.

To make North America prosperous for the future, we need to improve the efficiency of the movement of people, goods and services crossing our borders.” (emphasis added)

Not the security and prosperity of the U.S., mind you, but North America. Not less immigration, but more “efficient” immigration. Not to mention that it appears a bit of a stretch that Mexico and the U.S. have common criteria for what constitutes “terrorists or other criminal elements”.

I am convinced that the US and Canadian dollars and the Mexican peso will be set to a constant mutual exchange rate well within the next decade. Not only that, but the most onerous of Mexican and Canadian law, could well become our law. Take the hate crime laws in Canada, for instance, which now effectively ban pastors from preaching on, for instance, portions of Romans Chapter 1.

The other co-author of the above book, Jim Gilchrist, founded the Minuteman project in an effort to help secure our southern border. Recent events, such as revelations that the Border Patrol cooperated with Mexican authorities (via Washington, of course), in reporting the location of the Minuteman volunteers, in conjunction with the SPP agenda, are compelling evidence that the Bush administration has committed itself to this North American equivalent of the European Union.