In Florida's early vote wars, Rick Scott leading but Charlie Crist gaining
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The race for Florida governor is tied in the polls, but the past week has brought more good numbers for Democrat Charlie Crist than Gov. Rick Scott.
After the first full week of in-person early voting, Democrats have started to eat into Republicans' lead in casting pre-Election Day ballots — a margin in the GOP's favor of 138,000 of more than 1.8 million cast statewide.
In 2010, Republicans led Democrats by 12 percentage points in ballots cast before Election Day, when Scott went on to beat Democrat Alex Sink by just over 1 percent of the vote. As of Monday, the Republican lead for this election was about 7.6 percentage points.
In a sign of how tenuous Scott's lead appears, the governor reversed course and broke his word not to spend his personal millions on the race. An estimated 10,000 ads attacking Crist and promoting Scott are expected in the final week.
"I think they're pretty desperate," Crist said Monday at an early voting rally at Florida International University. "He wouldn't be spending that kind of money if he wasn't afraid."
The actual early and absentee votes won't be tabulated until Election Day, of course, so it's impossible to say how many votes each candidate has received so far.
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Democrats had virtually no ground game in 2010. This year, not only does the Crist campaign have an aggressive voter mobilization effort in Democrat-rich South Florida, but groups including NextGen Climate and America Votes are aggressively working, too.
Crist adviser Steve Schale noted in a memo to supporters Monday that Democrats are outpacing their 2010 performance so far in 54 of Florida's 67 counties and are doing particularly well in the heavily populated Democratic strongholds of southeast Florida.
"Democrats in Dade are running 15 points better compared to the GOP today in Dade than we did in 2010, and 14 points better in both Broward and Palm Beach. In fact, in the latter two counties, Democrats have turned out roughly twice as many voters at this point in the election than we did in 2010, while in Dade, the number is about 76 percent more than 2010," Schale wrote, describing Crist as "uncomfortably ahead" and urging allies not to get complacent and let up on the gas.
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/in-floridas-early-vote-wars-rick-scott-leading-but-charlie-crist-gaining/2203975
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Response to Tony_FLADEM (Original post)
1) The Florida democrats are barely less to the right of the GOP. Do not forget, we are the ones that elevated Debbie "don;t run against my friends" Wasserman-Schultz, aka she who dismantled Dean's machine.
2) Rick Scott is far to the right of even old school GOP. He is the bleedign edge of the Tea Party.
The onyl good thign about my vote is that i get to vote on amendment two, so that we can start turnign Florida into denver east 
your views, and can sympathize with you. I don't have two sons, but I have one and went through several very horrible stressful years when he got involved with Meth and perhaps some other secondary drugs. However, it was Meth that consumed him and his now wife. I have horror stories I can tell that even involved him and her being kidnapped after one of her cousins came to visit them. The cousin was about 20 and had gotten involved with the Latin Kings out of Sebring and as far as we have been able to piece together. He was talking "big" about people he knew who lived in our area, his cousin. Think he might have told them some whoppers that were off the scale!
My son and his wife weren't dealers or anything close to it, the kid was in some real trouble with this gang and they were the "real deal!" Making this short, 3 of them kidnapped my son and his then girlfriend, forced them to drive them back across the state with the cousin in the front seat. They ended up shooting the cousin in the head, he died slumped over on the girlfriend. Gang decided to GO BACK to my son's place and wanted to take a chain saw and cut up the body in the tub "in the middle of the night!" My son talked them out of it because neighbors would hear. Decided then to make my son drive them somewhere to bury the body, by then it was getting light out. So back to my son's place they go, took his vehicle and told them NOT to call the police and by some miracle didn't kill my son and his girlfriend. They left, my son called the police ASAP and I learned about this horror by reading it on the FRONT page of our paper. My son is named after his father, he's a Jr. We've lived here for many, many years and maybe you can use your imagination about how my husband and I felt and ALL the fall out. And I didn't even know anything about meth back then! I'll leave it there.
OTOH, my mother and father-in-law died of cancer, my mother pancreatic, father-in-law prostate that spread to bone. We cared for both of them, 2 months before my mother died, and 3 months before my father-in-law died. We saw first hand the horrible pain they lived with, and how much heavy pain medication they needed more and more of just because they didn't die quickly. Hard to say this, but I think they might have wanted to pass away before it got so bad. I have seen medical MJ help others, also some who got it illegally.
I also have to say that my husband and I weren't involved in drugs that weren't prescribed, we both worked middle class jobs, tried to raise both of our children with the values most families do, were active in their sports etc., etc. We didn't give them everything on a platter, didn't have that kind of money. If they wanted extra things they needed to get jobs. We couldn't buy them cars and the list goes on. We have good reputations in our community and any police interaction might have been a ticket or two.
I know, this has gotten very long. Just wanted to let you know I UNDERSTAND what drugs do when used badly. It can be a horrible experience. Not only for the parents, but for our extended family who also live here. Don't know about the CA experience, can't say this will be horrible for FL though. Many retirees live here and many might find MJ will help the pain.
I know how long Morgan has tried to get this on the ballot, I know about the woman who came to them for help and was/is an (R) from my area. It's been 9 or 10 years, read many articles about the process. Do I know that everything I read was absolute fact, not absolutely sure but think most must be.
I realize WHY many vote for this thinking it will give them easy access when they don't need it for pain. But for me, having LIVED through terrible drug abuse and also thinking some need help, I'll vote for Crist. But NOT because of any of what I just wrote.
To me RICK SCOTT WILL do more ruin than I he's already done. He really IS a crook, but one who will be praised and lauded as some sort of king, and will be given even more POWER! MONEY has talked much too loudly to me. Plus, it's going to take 60% of the vote for MJ to pass. Not willing to gamble with a future with Scott in it anymore.
I will attest that everything I just wrote is the truth and I'm so very, very thankful that even if my son had to spend 6 months in the county jail, got out in 3 that he's now a very productive member of society. Married, has a son and started his own business. Doesn't even drink alcohol or smoke ANYTHING and also calls himself a Christian. The last one is his choice alone. I left the Catholic church a long time ago and find some of the whacky Christians on the Right to be VERY SCARY!
Forgive me for going on and on, but I think I could write a book with much more detail. Hope your sons are doing well, don't wish the experience on anyone. But, I did live it myself even if it almost broke me.
