Sunset for Florida Democrats

I didn't know at first if this meme was made by someone for Martin O'Malley or someone against Martin O'Malley, though the unflattering picture of O'Malley's head that was Photoshopped in suggested the latter. (And it was an anti-O'Malley meme; it's from a conservative Web site.)  Nevertheless, it sums up Florida congresswoman Debbie Wassserman Schultz in a nutshell.

It was three years ago today that then-presidential contender Martin O'Malley called for more Democratic presidential primary debates at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting in Minneapolis, only to be given a death-ray gaze by Wasserman Schultz, then the DNC chair.  After tipping the scales for Hillary Clinton so she could lose to Donald J. Trump, you'd think that Debbie - now running for re-election to the House for the first time since Trump became President - would be punished by Florida Democrats with a robust primary challenger.  Think again, sucka - Debbie is running in today's House primary unopposed, while Democrat Tim Canova, who unsuccessfully challenged her in the 2016 House primary, is running against her as an independent.  Florida Democrats would rather renominate and reward someone who screwed the national party and the country rather than take a chance with someone else in what is a solidly Democratic district.

And Deb's constituents will vote for her because they will be brainwashed into thinking that if they vote for Tim Canova, they're only going to split the vote, help the eventual Republican nominee win, and lessen Democratic chances of taking back the House.

Alas, lameness of the brain among Florida Democrats isn't confined to the 23rd U.S. House district.  The Democratic Party in the Sunshine State managed to allow Republican Rick Scott get elected governor twice by somehow finding nominees even more unelectable than he was; now he's leading in the U.S. Senate election against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, running for a fourth term.  It seems that Scott has grown on Florida voters, like a wart, almost.  Today, Florida Democrats are expected to nominate for governor Gwen Graham, a former one-term congresswoman with no executive experience whose biggest claim to fame is that she's the daughter of former Florida two-term governor and three-term U.S. Senator Bob Graham.  That is, Florida Democrats are going to nominate her for the same reasons national Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton for President in 2016 - her sex and her family name.

And I'll bet Debbie Wasserman Schultz has something to do with this.

Ahh, who cares?  The Democrats should just give up on Florida.  It's not worth fighting for, even though Martin O'Malley, in his unappreciated efforts to help rebuild the Democratic Party, keeps going down there to fight for it.

No.  Give it up, Democrats. Florida is lost.  You're not going to put Gwen Graham in the governor's mansion, and you're not going to save Bill Nelson's sorry hide.  Concentrate on the House nationwide and forget saving Nelson's Senate seat . . . or the Senate.  There may very well be a blue wave in the November elections, but the only blue wave that's going to wash over Florida is going to be from a Category 5-plus hurricane.  Never mind Florida, Democrats, climate change and rising sea levels are going to push it into the sea anyway.

In which case, the 49-star flag that was only our official flag for one year may very well make a comeback.

Florida Democrats Are Sinking

As noted here on this blog and elsewhere, Democrats have been getting their posteriors kicked - sometimes with the boots wedged in the orifices pretty darn good - in so many down-ballot races that one wonders why it is the Republicans who are marked for extinction.  And nowhere is the Democrats' trouble more obvious than the state of Florida.  Democrats in the Sunshine State are doing so poorly, it's a wonder President Obama won the state twice.  Because a lot of these losers can't even win once.

  

When Marco Rubio ruled out a run for a second term to the U.S. Senate to concentrate on the Presidency, Democratic prospects for a Senate seat pickup seemed assured . . . until Rubio reversed course and decided to run for another term after all after ending his presidential bid.  He's so far ahead of his Democratic opponent, U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy, in the polls that Democrats have stopped throwing money at the Murphy campaign and are throwing in the towel instead.  Which makes sense, considering Murphy's background; he's a former Republican who has received campaign contributions from an admitted felon, and his father and his family's business donated money to a super-PAC supporting him, under ethically dubious circumstances.

Did I happen to mention a bill Murphy co-sponsored in the House to help his family's business?  You can read all about it here.

Then there's that other former Republican, former governor Charlie Crist, who in 2014 proved to be as ineffective in running as a Democrat against Governor Rick Scott to get his old job back as he was when he ran for the Senate in 2010 as an independent.  Having lost the least loseable gubernatorial election in the 2014 midterm cycle, Crist is now running for the U.S. House of Representatives against Republican incumbent David Jolly, who in 2014 whopped Alex Sink in a special election for the seat (four years after Rick Scott whopped Alex Sink for the governorship).   Crist, in his new role as a professional candidate, showed how out of touch he is with his own would-be constituents by defending Hillary Clinton as someone who's honest and trustworthy during a debate with Jolly.  The audience erupted with laughter.

Then there is Representative Alan Grayson, who has been accused of spousal abuse by his ex-wife and recently lost as much as $18 million of his considerable fortune in an investment scam.  He gave up his House seat to run against Patrick Murphy, the Democratic establishment's choice for the U.S. Senate nomination, and, as you obviously have already figured out, lost. His new wife Dena Minning, whom he married this past May, ran in the Democratic primary for the House seat he gave up to run for the Senate.

She lost.

So did Tim Canova, a Bernie Sanders-type reformer, in his bid for the Democratic nomination for the seat of Florida's Twenty-Third U.S. House District.  The person who beat him?  Incumbent congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Who, as I understand it, is responsible for the many problems and disasters Democrats have had in Florida and elsewhere.

Florida Democrats, for all their efforts to stand tall and proud, are going down faster than the state itself, as sea levels rise.  An historical note: Florida was one of the first states in which the Whigs collapsed after that party's 1852 disaster.   

History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.