Peter Schorsch
When I think about the Tampa Bay Times‘ political editor Adam Smith, I am reminded of the teachings of Andre Romelle Young, aka Dr. Dre, who once said:
“Used to be my homie, use to be my ace/Now I want to slap the taste out ya mouth.”
In other words, I really don’t care for Smith, the Eazy-E of Florida political journalism. And I certainly don’t enjoy defending Smith. But defend him I must.
This month Smith wrote a story headlined, Florida not a given for Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, in which he explained “what makes Florida such a challenging state politically is its fast-changing and ever-growing nature.”
This morning, the National Journal‘s S.V. Date, a veteran of Florida political reporting, offers a piece, Why Bush and Rubio can’t count on Florida, in which he explains that “too many Republicans outside of Florida do not understand how much the state has changed in recent years.”
Mind you, Date’s piece focuses more on how Hispanic politics are driving this change and, of course, there will be a lot of overlapping stories by the national and state media but, jeez Shirish, couldn’t you have waited more than a few weeks before you riff on the same storyline Smith did?
OK, I am done sticking up for Adam Smith. Now back to the regularly scheduled trolling.
