Good News From Florida
Both of the redistricting amendments exceeded the 60% threshold and are now part of the Florida constitution. In addition, the attempts by the legislature to overturn the public financing and classroom size amendments failed.
This makes the election of Scott as governor less of a blow and signals real change in the make-up of Florida’s legislature and its Congressional delegation. The Republicans will have to turn in their crayons.
After being sandbagged by Markos of DKos [he suggested Crist run as an independent] and Obama [the rumor that Meek was dropping out in favor of Crist was traced back to the White House], Kendrick Meek didn’t really have a chance, so we are stuck with Rubio.
The turn-out was just under 50%, which isn’t exceptionally low, but the win on redistricting shows that liberals and progressives were voting, but not for a number of Democratic candidates. If the leader of the party won’t support the party’s candidates, why should voters?
5 comments
you can blame me for rubio’s win — i left that one blank on my ballot.
i signed the petition to get meek on the ballot; i hectored people, both on blogs and irl, to sign the petition to get his name on the ballot; i voted for him in the primary because he successfully collected enough signatures to get his name on the ballot by petition. it was a terrific small-d democratic start for someone who had the potential to bercome a terrific small-d democratic senator.
but he ‘moved to the center’ — it’s what big-d democrats do, after all — and lost my vote, although with the mood the country was in [throw the bums out!] i’m not sure even his mom’s advice could have got him elected this year.
it’s a sad commentary on the sorry state we’re in that charlie crist is the only candidate in the race who moved noticeably to the left. not for one minute did i believe that crist meant it, but i would have believed in — and voted for — meek if he had moved substantially to the left.
that said, i did vote for the dewmocratic party candidate for governor, not because i like her, but because i can’t stand rick scott. oh well.
the choices in a couple of my local races were equally as unpalatable, so i left those blank too. i did however vote on all the judges and all the amendments, so that the democratic party, should they care to check up on me [i’m still a registered democrat, still harboring the probably vain hope that the party will someday turn back to the left], can see that i DO vote.
ack, typos. obviously i’ve been away from the interwebz for too long.
Welcome back!
Yes, Kendrick tried to triangulate and it was never going to work for him. He got some “help” from the national party that turned off a lot of people who would have voted for him. Then the party sandbagged him when Crist switched to run as an independent. I told Ken Quinnell that I couldn’t whole-heartedly support Meek because of the moves to the center.
My ticket was severely split, although I did vote for Sink and a couple of others, my real goal was the redistricting amendments. They should alter the state politically for the next 10 years. It won’t help on the Panhandle, but the rest of the state should begin to resemble reality.
Most of my local votes were No Party Affiliation choices.
the npa-ers here were largely tea partiers and their ilk, and several of the races were between a republican and a far-far-right npa. i can sympathize with the progressives who want us all to vote for the crazies in order to bring down the democratic party that much faster, but i don’t actually want to live through the resulting chaos. so while i’ve actually voted for a sane republican or two in the past, and i’ve considered doing something radical at the ballot box, in the end, i can’t really bring myself to vote nihilist.
i put ‘move to the center’ in quotes because they all really move to the right, not the center. molly ivins hit that nail square on the head a few years ago, and nobody has said it better since.
thanks for the welcome back, but my participation is still going to be limited until i figure out my new wireless router.
The NPAs I voted for were qualified for the job, while the party candidates weren’t, like the CFO position. I voted for a Hispanic for sheriff, because that would have been exciting to watch and he was qualified. I didn’t vote for any whackoes, the people I selected I researched first, but there were definitely some whackoes running, especially for governor, as Alex Sink was the only one running who was qualified and not crazy.
I did vote for one local Republican because he is actually sane, and his opponent isn’t. I just couldn’t chance that member of the American Taliban getting on the school board.
The Village isn’t happy when anyone they think is to the left of Genghis Khan has any power. It disturbs their community, so they work to exclude them by any means necessary.
Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, and Molly Ivins – the great ladies of the state of Texas.