Sunset for Florida Democrats - The Sequel

Georgia ain't on my mind now.  Let me talk about Florida.

Two weeks ago today, I saw Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and incumbent Florida senator and re-election candidate Bill Nelson come up short in their respective campaigns but by the end of the night, neither race had been called and subsequent recounts had to be held, providing a modicum of hope for Democrats in the Sunshine State.

As of this weekend, however, Ron DeSantis is to be the new governor of Florida, and Rick Scott - who, like Madonna, somehow manged to turn accidental fame into a long career - is the state's new U.S. Senator. 

So what went wrong?  How did the two most loathsome Florida politicians not named Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who, alas, was re-elected to the House) pull off such high-profile wins when much of the rest of the country was turning against Trump Republicanism? The answer is not in the incompetence of Broward County election officials, but rather in three simple facts.  First, Florida is as divided as the country at large.  Second of all, despite Florida's young multiracial population, retirees - most of whom are white - keep moving into the state at a pretty good clip, and even the registered Democrats among them are more conservative than the state's younger and browner residents.  Older people, of course, vote more than younger people, though Florida likely has a lot of young white conservatives - DeSantis, at 40, is one of them.  Third, retirees and working people alike live in Florida for the low taxes as well as the (mostly) sunny weather, and the policies Gillum in particular espoused meant more amenities and, thus, more spending.

Florida has long been seen as the country's most populous swing state.  But is it time to cede Florida to the Republicans?  Probably.  Because after the debacles of centrist candidates for statewide office such as Alex Sink and Patrick Murphy, Florida Democrats tried something new by nominating a black progressive for the governorship even as it renominated a tried-and-true incumbent three-term white moderate senator for re-election.  They both ended up losing, albeit narrowly, to Republicans.  Two different sorts of Democrats . . . losing to Republican opponents . . . in the same state in the same year. 

That show of solidarity Gillum and Nelson had with former President Obama made for good pictures but also made for ineffective politics.

At 76, Bill Nelson is now, like many Floridians his age, retired.  And Gillum?  Pundits are already saying that Gillum isn't going anywhere, though by that they mean that he will remain active in Florida politics.  Really?  As a former mayor of Tallahassee?  That's hardly a springboard for future endeavors for higher office.  Florida doesn't have another election for statewide office until 2022, when Ron DeSantis runs for a second term as governor and Marco Rubio is up for re-election to the Senate.  A rematch between Gillum and DeSantis is unlikely; Democrats never renominate to oppose an incumbent Republican officeholder the guy that incumbent Republican defeated for that office; DeSantis would like nothing better than a rematch with someone he's already creamed once.  And Rubio is such a huge political star that Floridians will keep sending him back to the Senate for as long as he wants to be sent back.  Gillum said that the struggle to move Florida in a more economically and socially just direction wasn't about him.  He's right; by 2022, Florida Democrats will have moved on to someone else.

But who?  Gwen Graham?  (Excuse me while I laugh at the thought of her name.)  Philip Levine, the millionaire businessman who ran for governor in the Democratic primary in 2018 and was mayor of Miami Beach from 2013 to 2017, might want to try again for either the governorship or Rubio's Senate seat.  But even having been mayor of Tallahassee is preferable to being a former mayor of Miami Beach.

So, despite a few key (no pun intended, if you get my drift) U.S. House victories two weeks ago, Florida Democrats are still in the dumps.  And their queen bee, their top honcho, their most visible pol, is still Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Pathetic.         

I have friends and relatives in Florida who keep inviting me to come down there.  In their dreams.  As long as Florida keeps electing bigoted climate-change deniers to office, I plan to boycott Florida completely.  (California orange juice all the way!)  Instead of traveling to Florida, I hope to take a vacation to warm, sunny, exotic . . . Wisconsin! :-D

Congratulations to Wisconsin's incoming Democratic governor, Tony Evers.

Election 2018: Game On

After numerous setbacks involving his cronies and John McCain's beautifully orchestrated funeral - orchestrated by McCain himself - Donald Trump finds himself staring at his worst poll numbers in over a year - a Washington Post/ABC News poll gives him a 60 percent presidential disapproval rating and a mere 36 percent approval rating.

I'm curious about the 4 percent of poll respondents who have no opinion!

Right now, All signs point to a Democratic takeover of the U.S. House in November, though it's not certain how big the Democratic House majority in the next Congress will be.  The real action will be in state legislative elections and gubernatorial elections, and the biggest governor's race is shaping up in Florida, where progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum, who is black, is going against Trump Republican Ron DeSantis.             

DeSantis has wasted no time in portraying Gillum's liberal agenda as dangerous for the state, but he's also wasted no time in fighting dirty.  He warned Floridians that Gillum sounds articulate while advocating for his policies, which most blacks hear as a backhanded remark from racist whites who find it astonishing that black people are able to speak the king's English and have a high intelligence.

Of course, it's easy to interpret DeSantis's remark as a warning to centrist and conservative Florida voters not to be taken in by Gillum's rhetorical ability to present a liberal governing policy as if it were mainstream (actually, it is; more about that in a moment) - that is, one could assume that he's less concerned with Gillum's dark brown skin than he is with his silver tongue.  But no one could possibly misinterpret What DeSantis said next - that a Gillum governorship could "monkey up" Florida.

This was clearly a racist comment.  DeSantis aides quickly came out and said that "monkey it up" is an expression DeSantis came up with himself that isn't meant to have racial connotations, but no one is buying it.  I've invented my own expressions, like the wholesome "No kidding, Kojak!" to use instead of the more vulgar "No sh--, Sherlock!"  But when I describe someone causing something to go wrong, I usually say that someone "screwed it up," fouled it up," or whatever.  "But "monkey it up"?  Uh, no.

The monkey here is the one on DeSantis's back - that of bigotry.

As for Gillum's policies . . . look, he's talking about expanding health insurance to everyone, improving education, making the wealthy pay for it . . . all actually quite mainstream positions.  Not that establishment Democrats have ever cared to notice; they've been too busy trying to move to the center for the past quarter century and getting their rear ends handed to them at the ballot box, both in Florida and elsewhere.  This makes it all the more crucial that Gillum wins in November.  Phil Murphy's 2017 gubernatorial victory in New Jersey attracted zero interest outside the state because New Jersey is so heavily Democratic it would have elected a ficus plant to succeed Chris Christie so long as it was a Democrat.  Florida is a swing state - a state that can go either way not just in presidential elections but in any statewide election - where a Democratic victory would mean something. Not that that there have been that many Democratic victories in Florida; as I noted last week, the state's Democratic Party is on death's door, holding neither house of the state legislature and possibly losing a U.S. Senate seat this fall.    Also, Florida Democrats have lost all of the five most recent gubernatorial elections there, manly by nominating squishy centrists (including, ironically, former Republican governor - and now Democratic congressman - Charlie Crist).  Gillum is running for governor as something different, and I'm not talking about his race.  He's offering a bold, progressive, social democratic agenda that could re-invigorate the party, get the masses to finally vote for their own interests, and also carry Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson to victory on Gillum's coattails.  But if he loses, Democrats will likely learn the wrong lesson and try to keep the party in the center - a center defined by the Republican right.

Andrew Gillum not only can win the governorship of Florida. He must win the governorship of Florida.