I know that after a big loss the circular firing squad is not usually the best response.
But here in Florida the leadership of the state party is — based on what it actually does — pretty darn awful.
For now, I'll leave it to others to detail how the party has lost touch with the majority of its core voters, to give detailed thoughts on a future direction, and make five-point arguments why the current state party leadership must go.
My beef is much simpler: a state party that can't be bothered to field a full slate is run by incompetents. Many federal and state offices were not contested by Florida Democrats, leaving the GOP free to spend its money elsewhere. Gov. Dean's “50 state strategy” understood how destructive this preemptive surrender is and also understood that unexpected things happen, making unlikely wins almost inevitable — if you have a candidate. The Florida Democratic party doesn't understand this.
Sign the petition to FIRE KAREN THURMAN NOW and get a new head of the state Democratic party.
The failure of the Democratic Party in Florida is another offshoot of Obamacare. After Obama’s victorious presidential campaign against McCain, The DNC and OFA wheeled around their grassroots foot soldiers and marched for healthcare change. This exasperated the DNC’s true grassroots support since most of those foot soldiers cared about issues other than Obamacare. These losses lead to the purge of the battle hardened veteran campaigners like Damian Perez, who introduced Obama during the 08 campaign and recently lead Luis Garcia to victory, and their replacement with people such as Bill Lydecker who hold DNC leadership positions for prestige and little else.
The Democrats are a mess. Thankfully they immolated themselves with obamacare and are now too hot for independent voters to touch. Campaign personnel changes won’t make a difference they have to reach across the aisle, repeal the individual mandate and backdoor tax increases or else they won’t win an election until the Republicans do something worse – like nominate Christine “ladybug/witch” O’Donnell.
I think if you follow the links above you will find some contrary theories. I do agree that Florida’s swing against the Democrats is linked to the fear of health care reform. Had you argued that given this evident fact from the polling, it was a mistake to run away from it; they should have instead tried to embrace it and explain it’s better features even though it would have been a tough sell given the audience.
But that’s actually not what this is about, at least for me. This is about the long-term strategic and tactical incompetence of the party machine.
As for ‘reaching across the aisle’ – that’s a barren slogan: Obama spent two years doing that and all he has to show for it is bite marks.
“As for ‘reaching across the aisle’ – that’s a barren slogan: Obama spent two years doing that and all he has to show for it is bite marks.”
You can’t be serious! Obama has tried to be bipartisan!
The White House labeled the stimulus bill a “bipartisan victory” after it had passed with support from just three Republicans in the Senate and none in the House of Representatives. But that doesn’t really make it bipartisan. Opposition to the bill, which included 11 Democratic House dissenters, was more bipartisan than the support. Obama’s definition of bipartisanship is that he gets his way. He wants an Everlasting Gobstopper, and he WANTS it NOW!!!
Health care was even MORE bipartisan, Obama style. It didn’t NEED to be bipartisan in the Dem’s view, because they held the presidency and a clean majority in both Houses. The Republicans could just take what they were given. So with their power they engaged in the worst kind of cronyism, backroom deals, and arrogance that left little more after Obama’s first two years but a hugely increased deficit with no spending end in sight.
Then when the public had the insolence to complain, Obama says of the Republicans “I don’t want folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to just get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.” Shut up, sit down and take your medicine – that’s bipartisanship Obama-style.
Just before the election he indicated that elections were for teaching your “enemies” a lesson (rather than affecting change in government) and that Republicans, if they wanted to ride along, could do so “at the back of the bus” (an obviously charged phrase).
Not to mention the endless examples of explaining that he has had trouble with this or that because he just hasn’t explained things properly to us little people. No, he’s explained things just fine – that’s exactly the problem.
Sorry…you have the right to agree with Obama, but you are just imagining things if you think he or the Dems in Congress have been at all bipartisan. Fortunately, there are elections every couple of years and the people took their government back.
And ask Russ Feingold how embracing Healthcare Reform worked out for him. He ran on it specifically. Funny though, the people of Wisconsin must not be smart enough to understand his big complicated words. Or maybe they did.
Keep living in a dream world Michael. This election was apparently only an inexplicable surprise to the people who think they know enough to know what’s best for me, despite myself. Kind of makes you wonder on the quality of their smartness, eh?
You want bipartisanship? You’re going to see it now that the conservative Dems are free to vote with their people’s will.
I thank the failure of the Democratic Party in Florida is another offshoot of Obamacare.