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October 18, 2000

Times Recommends
Nelson for U.S. Senate
When Floridians elect a U.S. senator, they tend to keep him. The popularity of such perennial favorites as Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles has owed to their standing on the same moderate middle ground as most Florida voters. When they elect a conservative like Connie Mack, who's leaving by choice after two terms, they prefer that he not have fangs or quills.

Miller for State Senate
Voters in state Senate District 21, which meanders through Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties, have a distinct choice between two well-known candidates. State Rep. Les Miller is the Tampa Democrat who remained faithful to his party, fought the popular Republican tide on issues that affected his constituents and pursued an agenda befitting his disproportionately poor, minority district. State Rep. Rudy Bradley is the opportunist from St. Petersburg who switched from Democrat to Republican to ride Jeb Bush's coattails. Miller is the reliable choice for voters in November.

Bill Maxwell
Both parties fight for the black vote
While listening to a popular South Florida black radio station the other day, I nearly drove my Blazer off the road when I heard this political ad: "Look, we know what you think Republicans are like, but we're working hard to show you who we really are."

Letters
Innovations could get voters out on Election Day
On Wednesday, Nov. 8, the politicians will be disappointed and the newscasters puzzled by the low voter turnout and American citizens' apparent apathy toward exercising their right to vote. The following are two solutions that could make voting more convenient and patriotic:  

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.