Hours after I last posted on this blog 10 days ago, the Tampa Bay Times wrote a story about the mysterious chicken who was appearing at recent St. Pete mayoral debates, mocking the fact that front-runner Kathleen Ford had been avoiding a number of such candidate forums. It's a fact that more St. Pete voters have read that story than attended any of those campaign forums; so how has it affected the race?
According to a St.Pete Polls survey done for blogger Peter Schorsch, and which was released yesterday, Ford has lost her front-runner status, now trailing incumbent Bill Foster by five points after previously leading him by six points.
There are 36 days before the Aug. 27 primary (though early voting begins soon), so the numbers will probably change again in the coming weeks. The fact is that at this juncture, it's hard to know which two candidates will still be standing on Aug. 28, and who will be the odd man (or woman) out...
On Saturday, I was in downtown Tampa for one of the protests held in the wake of the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case. An estimated 300 to 400 people crowded on both sides of Florida Avenue to show their displeasure at Zimmerman's acquittal nine days ago.
As I was traveling to the West Coast last week, news broke that William "Hoe" Brown had submitted his resignation after the revelations about his dilapidated properties in Tampa. Yesterday Mayor Bob Buckhorn vowed to go after any other slumlords in a concentrated effort by the city's code enforcement department.
And what is the House of Representatives going to do regarding immigration this year? Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner refused to venture any informed opinion on the issue on CBS's Face The Nation.