Regarding the Elections...This is what Floridians have to put....

[BlueJazz]

...up with. The Folks who live in the panhandle (of Florida) are
uninformed, mostly hicks and worse...they vote.. sigh...

"President Bush is doing a wonderful job. He's going after the terrorists, instead of waiting for them to come after us," retired engineer Lansing Smith said, hunched over the Formica counter. "John Kerry's just a flip-flopper. His 20 years in the Senate has been nothing but liberal."

To call Escambia County a Republican stronghold is like calling Tiger Woods a decent golfer. The Rev. Jerry Falwell once called Escambia the most conservative county in America. John F. Kennedy was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win Escambia.

It's the biggest county in the western Panhandle congressional district, which Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain will cross by bus today. The district includes six counties and roughly 400,000 voters. Escambia, the largest of the counties, boasts about 175,000 voters.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/10/Decision2004/Panhandle_residents_n.shtml

[TN al]

1. Just a thought on what Lansing Smith said...

... If Kerry is a flipflopper than how can he be nothing but liberal? Given the other sides refusal to see anything other than black and white there can only be two positions, the liberal and the conservative. If Kerry had flipflopped then he would have to be taking the conservative position at least 50% of the time.

Republican stupidity makes my head hurt.

[sam sarrha]

2. just put up warning disclaimers like on the sides of tobacco products

on the side of the roads going into Escambia.. to warn not to drink the water and for anyone sporting a Kerry bumper sticker. :tinfoilhat:

[bluedog]

3. Escambia county is the biggest fraud

mixup down here.......we heard all about the mess they created.....and I found an old article
PENSACOLA -- One of the best-kept secrets in Florida's disputed 2000 presidential election is that thousands of ballots that ultimately counted were never even filled out by voters.

With no outside scrutiny, county officials on Election Day made new copies of at least 10,000 mismarked or torn absentee ballots that the counting machines initially couldn't read. More than 2,400 absentee ballots were duplicated in Escambia County alone -- about 11 percent of all absentee votes cast in that county.

this from:: http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=2678

there are many more from google....

[Brotherjohn]

4. As a resident of Escambia County, FL, I agree somewhat. But...

... I take issue with the characterization of Escambia as "the most conservative" county in the country.

Yes, it's pretty conservative. But I have personally visited many many much more conservative areas. While we have our share of Confederate flag-flying yahoos here, I remember driving through the Mississippi Gulf Coast area one JULY 4th, and seeing more Confederate Flags flying at people's beachfront barbecues than US flags!

To defend my county a bit (and to give people out there some encouragement about Florida), I have seen many, many more Kerry signs in yards this year than Bush signs. They are everywhere. While garage-saling this weekend, I must have seen 20 before seeing the first, and only, Bush sign. And these were not all minority or lower income areas. Most were upper-middle class areas with a low proportion of minority households (although it WAS in the city; I'm sure rural portions of the county lean more Bush).

Letters to the editor have been getting more and more critical of Bush (you used to never see them here).

In today's local paper, a poll was cited showing Bush up 53-40% in Escambia County. This was the recent (some say repub-leaning) Strategic Vision poll which also showed Bush & Kerry tied state-wide (48-48). But the recent ARG poll showed Kerry up by 7 in the state. I would guess that Escambia also leans more towards Kerry than the Strategic Vision poll shows.

[BlueJazz]

5. To Mods......Sorry about sticking this in the wrong place..

Maybe I should wake-up and have my Caffeine fix before I start posting.. :)

[TruthIsAll]

6. And its the county which triple-punched the Gore votes....

The triple-punched Gore votes were in Escambia..
The 22,000 double-punched Gore votes were in Duval...
The LePore Butterfly ballot was in Palm Beach...
The Delay recount riot was in Dade...
The 16,022 Diebolded Gore votes were in Volusia...
The bogus/late Bush absentees/military were processed in Martin...

There are 61 other counties I won't mention here...

[woofless]

7. The Fla. panhandle is really Alabama.

They should chop off the state at Apalachicola and give it up.

[Brotherjohn]

8. Not really. Yeah, we joke about living in "LA" ("Lower Alabama") here. But

... I swear, you drive across the border (as we do sometimes to go to a good outlet mall over there), and you can just FEEL it. The difference is tangible. There are racist placards on a restaurant we ate at in an upscale waterfront town over there (that type of thing might only be seen at redneck hangouts here, which admittedly, are abundant). There's a "Knife and Christmas Store" on the beach in Alabama.

Even the "educated", "upscale" places over there still have a heavy "old-south", racist element. At least here (even in the Panhandle) we get a filtering over of the typical "Florida" mindset, which is much more relaxed and open-minded. Of course, we have a LONG way to go!

[bluedog]

9. checked the elected pfficials there

looks like 13 repugs...and 2 Democrats......
http://www.webintellects.net/~www/candidat.htm

I own a cabin in Dixie county.and they have a wab site that one can never get too...taxes on that are higher than my taxes here in St.Pete per mill...and its only a little one room unfinished shack.