Mitch Perry
Bad news for folks who were psyched that Tim Tebow was announced on Thursday to be a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Like Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady before him, Tebow became the latest (former) pro quarterback who has disavowed any intentions that he would be speaking at Donald Trump‘s party next week.
“My goal has always been to be able to make a difference in the biggest way possible. And if one day that’s in the political realm, that’s what I’ll do,” Tebow said on his Instagram account last night. “But right now, I really believe that’s through my foundation and our amazing partners in fighting for kids who can’t fight for themselves.”
The Republic, and the Republicans, will certainly survive an RNC sans Tebow, but how does that even happen? All the other folks named yesterday: Pam Bondi, Rick Scott, Mary Fallin, Peter Thiel, etc., all will speak. It’s just sort of odd.
Although he’s delaying his announcement about his running mate today, all indications are Trump will select Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his running mate — unless he changes his mind overnight, that is.
The Tampa Bay Times’ Michael Auslen forwards the story we reported on last week — there aren’t any upcoming U.S. Senate primary debates coming up soon, and it appears as though Patrick Murphy is the reason why.
Catherine Welch from WMFE radio in Orlando, who was coordinating radio debates across Florida public radio stations, wrote to me yesterday that the Murphy camp confirmed that they received her invitation on May 30, “yet the campaign says it can not fit our Aug , 9 a.m. debate into the schedule.”
And the Times’ Rick Danielson reports on a story we meant to get to but didn’t (so props to him) — that organizers in Tampa of a referendum that would replace the city’s citizen review board with something stronger will not make the deadline of 21,000 signatures to get on this November’s ballot.
“I don’t think will make it this ballot,” the Rev. Russell Meyer told me on Monday before a Black Lives Matter protest began at Lykes Gaslight Park. “Something like what we’re talking about will be on the Tampa Charter Review Committee that city council is talking about.” He also mentioned electing a different city council to change how the board is composed but, with the exception of the District 7 race this fall, the board won’t turn over until 2019.
In other news…
A new Hillary Clinton campaign office opened in Ybor City last night, and there were lots of excited folks there — not too many of them under 40, though.
Christine Quinn is the South Tampa businesswoman who is taking on Kathy Castor in Florida’s 14th Congressional District this fall.
The Tampa City Council is close to approving a franchise agreement with developer Jeff Vinik’s Strategic Property Partners and Cascade Investments for an underground chiller for the Channelside development.
Any Libertarians out there? There’s a contested Senate battle next month, and we’ve got a poll on who’s leading in that race.
The Florida League of Women Voters is getting into advocacy and education regarding solar power.
