This Week in Politics

Now through the November election, columnist Dennis Maley will rundown the week's big local, state and national political stories in this new, exclusive TBT feature. This week – Romney climbs to even in the polls on the heels of first debate; state attorney race reveals the deep politicization of the justice system; school district budget situation might be worse than we thought.

It's difficult to find a historic example of when a presidential debate has had such a profound impact on an election. Romney's personals were the lowest in modern history prior to the debate and he's pulled almost even since. The ground he's made up with women is also remarkable. Yes, Reagan was beaten badly by Mondale in their first debate but recovered, and yes, they've still got to debate foreign policy, a subject on which Romney has been woeful, but if the President does not improve significantly, he will have lost an election after having one of the most seemingly insurmountable October leads a candidate in his position could have ever hoped for, and he will have lost it on a debate stage.

The electoral math is still difficult for Romney, but the other scenario to consider is the popular vote. It had been seen as a given that the President would win the popular vote convincingly, even if he lost in the electoral college. Imagine if President Obama, who suffered tremendous obstructionism in his first term, despite a landslide victory, won reelection while losing the popular vote. The lack of such a “mandate” would likely confine him to “lame duck” status as of November 7. If the campaign is doing anything more than debate research and prep at this point, people need to be fired.

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There was a lot in this week's piece on the DAVID pulls on State Attorney candidate John Torraco that I found disturbing, but the worst remains the email from district judge Janet Dunnigan to Chief Deputy State Attorney and candidate Ed Brodsky that first surfaced this summer. It seems to confirm what people who've sat before the court have long suspected – that their futures often hinge on the outcome of what is supposed to be a clearly-separated and unbiased system, but is run by political chums who'd have us believe they can work in concert to assure each other electoral success (while at the office and on taxpayer time no less), without such alliances spilling over into proceedings on the courtroom floor. Justice might be blind, but its subjects aren't dumb.

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Former school board candidate Linda Schaich said from the beginning that the supposed $8 million budget shortfall that recently rocked the Manatee County School District was only the “tip of the iceberg.” Schaich vowed to go over the numbers and has since discovered what she says could be as much as $44 million in mistakes. She has no faith, however, that the forthcoming audit will get to the bottom of it. "The audit committee consists of two citizens and three school district employees,” Schaich told the board Monday, “one of whom is the district internal auditor who is the first person who should have discovered the error and reported it to the board and did neither. This probably will not be a fair or complete audit." Not surprisingly, a poll of TBT readers on who they would elect for the seat if the election were held today, knowing of the district's financial woes that former superintendent Tim McGonegal deliberately kept from the public during the election, saw 79 percent saying they'd take Schaich over incumbent and close McGonegal ally Bob Gause.

There will be a public meeting on the upcoming search for a new Superintendent tonight at Braden River High School at 6 p.m.

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