Tom Jackson, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Tom JacksonDecember 23, 2016

Like comedy, politics is most often all about timing. No one knows this better than Will Weatherford, who at the age of 26 rocketed from obscure legislative aide to Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives because of unanticipated, but perfectly placed, events (more about which in a moment). Now, arguably, this once-rising star of […]

Tom JacksonNovember 29, 2016

A ritualistic subplot of virtually every election organizes around announcements by those who threaten to leave the country if the vote doesn’t go their way. They shouldn’t be taken seriously. Interestingly, politicians with far more at stake than your garden-variety celebrity almost never declare their intention to abandon the nation for distant parts. The phenomenon […]

Tom JacksonNovember 9, 2016

And now, President-elect Donald J. Trump. Wow. Wow. Wow. So much for that 0.1 percent chance of victory. So much for blue tsunamis and Republican humiliation. So much for the first woman president and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. So much for experts. It turns out, the hotshots knew nothing. Not a damn thing. Pre-election […]

Tom JacksonNovember 8, 2016

And so, at last, it is upon us. Election Day. Time, fence-sitters, to decide. We’ve been counting down so long, all the way back to the spring of last year; it sometimes seemed we’d never get here. Great nation that we (still) are, however, propelled by momentum and time-honored systems that guide truer than any […]

Tom JacksonOctober 28, 2016

Hjalma Johnson, small-town banker, international mensch and most devoted of Bull Gators, is never without a story pertinent to the moment. But he knows his listener’s time is precious, and so, even as he dives in, as if there were a pull-string in the middle of his back, he inevitably tenders this offer: “Stop me […]

Tom JacksonOctober 25, 2016

Early voting has arrived in Florida, and with it the inevitable rush to the polls. Sigh. I can’t say I fault anyone who exercises the early option, particularly this year, when the choices at the top are so unrelentingly dismal. In 2016, voting early is sort of like ripping off a bandage. You know it’s […]

Tom JacksonOctober 18, 2016

It’s said in politics; a week is an eternity. Some weeks, maybe. Not the one just behind us. The reason I know this for a certainty is that last week was precisely when I took a mind-cleansing break from the day-by-day hubbub that is this year’s precedent-setting, stomach-turning election. The cause, both recreational and restorative, […]

Tom JacksonSeptember 28, 2016

Donald-Trump-AP-photo-debate-09.27-Large.jpg

Paraphrasing the driver in “Taxi” when he approached the gorgeous blonde in the bar: “You look like the kind of voter who’s heard every debate takedown in the book. … So I guess one more won’t hurt.” Let’s begin by conceding that nobody knows anything anymore. There’s not a single conventional thinker who thought Donald […]

Tom JacksonSeptember 20, 2016

Now that the Florida Education Association has chosen to appeal its legal double-drubbing over the state’s scholarship program for students from low-income families, the question that leaps immediately to mind is this: Why does the teachers’ union hate poor kids? Seriously. About 92,000 students from modest circumstances are attending private schools through the 15-year-old Florida […]

Tom JacksonSeptember 13, 2016

Whatever else we might be tempted to say in the aftermath of last month’s recent primary election, for those who live and/or work in Pasco County, this, above all, is beyond dispute: Pasco is Mike Fasano’s county. Everyone else is just visiting. Who but Fasano, the nudging, empathetic, perpetually beatifying champion of the “little guy […]

Tom Jackson
Joel Rudman with wife Sophie. Photo via Rudman.

Will Weatherford’s timing off, but only for the moment

Tom Jackson: Topsy-turvy election seen from bottom of the world

Tom Jackson: Blindsided by a phenomenon in orange

Tom Jackson: At our time of choosing, will we guess wrong?

Tom Jackson: Banker’s pay-it-forward tale is essence of America

Tom Jackson: This year, especially, resist the early voting urge

Tom Jackson: A week on the trail to political eternity

Tom Jackson: Donald Trump lost, big league … or did he?

Tom Jackson: Appeal puts poor students under FEA’s boot

Tom Jackson: In Pasco, all roads lead to Mike Fasano