What GOP governors said, (not) really

(Previously unpublished minutes of a closed-door brainstorming session at the Republican Governors Association conference, held last week at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami.)

Why Obama won, and why McCain lost

On Tuesday, more than 64 million Americans voted for a black guy with a strange name to be their next president. When he won, the world's view of our country instantly changed, and so did the way we view ourselves.

Deliver us from scandal, Lord

An Election Day prayer for the Sunshine State: Dear Lord, have mercy on Florida. Please don't let it happen again here. Not that we're blaming You for the voting debacle back in 2000. You're not the one who designed the ridiculous butterfly ballots that started the whole mess. It wasn't You who put Katherine Harris in charge, and it certainly wasn't You who caused all those silly chads to hang.

Did Mahoney think he'd get away with it?

If there were a political equivalent of the Darwin Awards, this year's winner would be Tim Mahoney, the Democratic congressman from Palm Beach Gardens.

CAROL HIAASEN | OPINION

This year, smear tactics carry big risk

Up until now, Florida's most notable contribution to the 2008 presidential selection process was euthanizing the campaign of Rudy Giuliani.

Cindy to blame for woes on Wall Street

The collapse of Wall Street and the freeze of credit markets can be traced to one unlikely culprit: Cindy Crawford. I'm sure she didn't mean to cripple the economy. Most supermodels avoid meddling in global monetary markets, and it's unlikely that Cindy realized how much influence she commanded.

If Palin were a male candidate . . .

The vice presidential debate is set for next Thursday, and millions of voters will be watching to see if moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS behaves herself.

Tawdry tale of oil drillers and `MMS Chicks'

People always say the Bush administration is in bed with the oil companies, but it turns out to be literally true. According to the Interior Department, some government officials in charge of collecting oil and gas royalties smoked pot, snorted cocaine and had sex with employees of big energy firms.

We should all have an ex like this one

Every divorced guy would love an ex-wife like Barbara Gomez. As the chief of Miami's public housing agency, she helped funnel more than $1 million in city contracts to companies employing one of her former husbands.