Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) announced yesterday that his administration was moving forward with a plan to abandon touch-screen electronic voting machines<\/a> altogether. The controversial machines, installed after the 2000 debacle, proved to be even less reliable, and Crist vowed that a new paper-ballot system, counted by scanning machines, will be in place in time for the 2008 election. Given Florida’s size and significance, some experts are referring to the change as the “death knell” of paperless e-voting.<\/p>\n * It’s been apparent for a while that Hillary Clinton would likely be the best financed of the Democratic presidential candidates, but the senator’s campaign is taking steps to ensure that’s the case. Clinton is setting a $1 million benchmark<\/a> for the honor of being in her top echelon of supporters. In contrast, Bush’s “Pioneers” were expected to raise $100,000 for his 2000 race.<\/p>\n * In what appears to be part of a trend, Mitt Romney has successfully recruited<\/a> several top aides from Jeb Bush’s political operation. Yesterday, the Massachusetts Republican announced the hire of five Jeb aides, including the former Florida governor’s press secretary.<\/p>\n * Barack Obama caught some flack yesterday when The Politico discovered that his new national finance chair, Penny Pritzker, donated $2,000<\/a> to Bush\/Cheney in ’04. As National Journal noted, “In Pritzker’s defense, it’s smart for a billionaire executive of a major company to max out to the president’s re-election campaign. And Pritzker endorsed John Kerry in ’04. And almost every check she’s written over the past few cycles have been sent to Democrats.” <\/p>\n