Editorial: A desperate politician

NOTE: Brian Winfield, Equality Florida's Communications Director reached out to a number of Florida papers to take a stand on the McCollum/Foster Parent debacle. The Pensacola News Journal felt strongly enough about the issue that their Editorial Board ran a fantastic editorial, with a scathing cartoon.

This is Pensacola folks, one of the most conservative bastions of Florida!

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Pensacola News Journal

August 14, 2010

There are few things as dangerous as a desperate politician frantic to elbow past an election opponent to grab votes on the extreme edge of a political party's "base." Case in point: Bill McCollum.

Entering the race for the GOP nomination for governor, it probably never occurred to the lifelong conservative that another Republican could successfully run to his right. But billionaire Rick Scott, unknown to most Floridians just a few months ago, dumped tens of millions of dollars from his personal fortune into the race, and suddenly McCollum was looking — at least to right-wing GOP voters — like the "liberal" candidate in the race.

So McCollum veered right, with his first target being illegal immigrants, a sure-fire GOP vote-getter already usurped by Scott. But at least McCollum's attempt to recapture the immigrant issue has the merit of being about people who are breaking the law. Whatever your position on a solution to illegal immigration, illegals are exactly that — illegal immigrants violating the law.

But now McCollum is onto one of the right's most reliable political boogeymen: homosexuals.

See the cartoon and read the full article here.