One Is Known By The Company They Keep

Last week I met with some friends at Nikki’s Place, an Orlando soul food restaurant located in the district and pictured to the right. The friends were those that I made over the past year when I was on the campaign trail.

This is the second time I have eaten at Nikki’s. Each time the food has been, in a word: delicious. It seems I am not alone in my opinion. Nikki’s place has been nominated as one of the best soul food restaurants in Central Florida.

As I was paying my bill at the table, I was told of this distinction and asked to place my vote in favor of the restaurant online at www.gospelnow.net. This was unexpected and reminded me of a local incident about another firm giving away 'free meals.' It slipped out and I responded by asking our server with an innocent smile on my face if I would receive a coupon for a free meal for my vote.

While everyone at the table chuckled, my humorous jab at Corrine Brown’s recent gaffe bewildered our server. It seems she was unaware of Ms. Brown’s attempt to ** cough ** encourage people to vote. If she had then she had not consider it remarkable enough to give it a second thought.

Based on my observations and comments made by my friends, most in the community are unaware of Ms. Brown’s seemingly ethics violation and if they are, they are unaware that giving a paid inducement to vote is illegal.

One of my friends expressed a concern that when the news did become more widespread that it would give the black community 'bad press'. I understand and respect his fear because he is a proud man and rightly proud of his heritage. I responded to him that I thought the community could protect its pride by calling out Ms. Brown for her actions and deriding her for shedding negative light on the community. I believe if the community were to do that then it would most likely avoid a “black-eye” and possibly receive profound respect by the general population at large.

Post Toasties

No surprise. Corrine Brown soundly wins another term in Congress.

As we expected (please see my response to Bo’s comment pertaining to my ‘Yost Is Toast’ blog post) she handily beat Mike Yost. Ms. Brown received 61% of the vote. Mr. Yost received 36% of the vote and the remaining crumbs went to Terry Martin-Black.

These results line up with what our research predicted. As we noted 20% of the voters were undecided, but these voters lived in the inner city. These voters believe (correctly) Corrine Brown has accomplished little and more importantly feel she is an ineffective representative of the African-American community.

However, these voters chose her over Mr. Yost primarily because of Yost is of the 'wrong' party affiliation and that he did little to court their vote. I think the axiom, tried and true: "rather do business with the devil you know", holds true here.

Even though Ms. Brown won this election, her actions leading up to the election may put her in hot water. It seems she offered free meals for early voters. If this seeming ethics violation does not sink her career then we think the release of the Census results, and the decennial redistricting that follows, along with two amendments requiring the Florida Legislature to draw district boundaries without regard for partisanship that were approved by voters yesterday will go a long distance down the path of ending her vacation in Washington DC.