Monday Newsbreak: 3/10

--After being stripped of delegate representation at the national convention because they went against party rules to schedule their presidential primaries early, Florida and Michigan are becoming the focus of intense debate within the Democratic Party. Should they repeat their primaries to give the people in these very important, populous swing states a legitimate voice as to who they want their nominee to be? Of course, I say the answer is YES! This in spite of the fact that holding the Florida and Michigan primaries again would probably help Hillary Clinton to catch up in terms of delegate totals with Barack Obama, whom I support. But we're otherwise talking about 366 disenfranchised delegates in two states that may well determine the outcome of the 2008 presidential election! Unfortunately, there seems to be a standoff between the governors of Florida and Michigan, who do not want their states (and taxpayers) to have to pay the costs of holding the additional primaries, and the Democratic Party leadership under Howard Dean, who wants the states, not the party, to handle (and pay for) any re-voting.

-- The buzz around Florida these days is that popular governor Charlie Christ is "campaigning" to become John McCain's running mate for the general election. And why not? I like him, and he, like McCain, is conservative but pragmatic. Governor Crist is not beholden to the right-wing ideological "correctness" people who, I believe, are dragging their party down toward defeat this November.

--The weather here and across the eastern part of the U.S. has been atrocious this past week, with winter stubbornly refusing to go away. Here in northern Florida on Friday we had tornadoes (causing two deaths in Lake City 40 miles north of me) with heavy rain, thunderstorms, and high winds. On Saturday, the storms had passed over, but the winds just picked up even more. Sunday morning saw subfreezing temperatures across the Gainesville area, something I don't remember experiencing this late in the season since I moved up here thirty years ago. I just hope that the rain that deluged us will help to prevent the outbreak of fires this spring.

--The University of Florida men's basketball team is now down to their last hope for reach the NCAA Championship Tournament this year to defend their National Title, with their close-but-insufficient 75-70 loss to Kentucky at Lexington Saturday. And that hope is simply to confound the experts and win the upcoming Southeastern Conference tournament outright! But I don't see that happening, as much as I want it to be. So, unless a miracle occurs and Florida does prevail, I'll be pulling for the Tennessee Volunteers in the tournament. Tennessee last year had a team good enough to win it all, but were defeated in an extremely close game against Ohio State.