Quick Analysis Of The Announcement
Charlie Crist probably has the Senate seat sewed up as he remains a very popular governor. Charlie is an archetypal Floridian: the moral fiber of a real estate developer with mental capacity and skin tone of an orange – what’s not to like. Marco Rubio is Rick Santorum on domestic issues and Jessie Helms on foreign policy, and has almost no name recognition outside of South Florida. To be honest, his name is probably a negative for him in the Panhandle [thanks to Lou Dobbs, among others], the most Republican part of the state.
Alex Sink can win the governor’s race. She and Bill Nelson are the only Democrats who have won state-wide races in years. It is important for her to run and to win as there will be redistricting after the 2010 census and people other than Republicans need to be represented in the process to break the 65% stranglehold the Republicans have on the state legislature.
This would open up three statewide offices for competition: Chief Financial Officer, Attorney General, and Agricultural Commissioner, if Bill McCollum and Charlie Bronson join the race, although Bronson is term-limited out of a job in any case.
There is a world of opportunity for the Democrats in 2010 in Florida, if they get their act together, because the Republican bench is pretty lame at the moment.
6 comments
I wasn’t aware that Democrats in Florida *had* an act to get together, outside of a small area of South Florida anyhow…
-Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Republican Party registration in Florida has never been greater than registered Democrats, but the Republicans managed to control things by a slim margin in the last redistricting, and the Democrats have been in the wilderness since.
Massive GOTV drives at the right time and term limits are the main reason people think this is, what it has never been, a Republican state. Throw in a few terrible candidates and you have this disaster.
alex for governor!
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They really don’t have much of a political “farm” system in this state, other than the Congress, and that doesn’t help with statewide races.
Charlie Bronson should be able to stay at Ag forever, because he is good at it, but he gets thrown out by term limits.
McCollum is just a loser, not matter what job he has, but he extended his career by moving to the House for a while.
Alex needs to do this for the state. She knows what kind of financial mess we are in, and we need to fix things. At this point we need competence, no matter what the party identification, but people don’t want to get involved in this mess.
I’m starting to hear from my neighbors that Crist isn’t really a Republican, which means the good ol’ boys want Rubio. If that is true, there will be a nasty Republican primary, and Charlie might be vulnerable. If that happens, the Republicans are in even deeper yogurt than I assumed. If the wingnut base are going to fight for control, or refuse to turn out for Crist, they could lose everything in 2010.
… [republicans] could lose everything in 2010.
that would be lovely.
now, if the democrats would run some real liberals, instead of blue dogs, we’d be in good shape, or at least poised to start undoing the damage.
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If Dems don’t get a voice in redistricting, it will be another decade in the wilderness.