Why The Cult Of Republican-Lite Doesn't Work-- Case Studies In Florida

Republicans are campaigning too-- and with the DCCC as an opponent, you'd think the odds would be stacked in their favor. Problem for the GOP, though is that the NRCC is almost as inept and incompetent as the DCCC. Almost. The letter below didn't come from the NRCC, it came from the campaign of Scott Sturgill, the lead dog among the 4 Republicans who would like to take on wretched freshman Blue Dog Stephanie Murphy in the suburbs north of Orlando. It includes the Orlando Executive Aiirport and Orlando International, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, Sanford on the south shore of Lake Monroe, Oviedo, all of Lake Jesup, Osceola and Lake Harney in the East and Orlando east of Orange Avenue and the 4 Freeway. Previously the PVI was R+4 but it was bumped up to a perfectly even district now, making it much easier for a Democrat to win. Obama, albeit narrowly, lost both times but in 2016 Hillary won the district 51.4% to 44.1%. The medium income is $52,197, about $5,000 more than the state average. The district is 66% white, 19% Latino and almost 10% black.

The NRCC, desperate for candidates nationally, has included Sturgill in their Young Guns program, one off only 3 in Florida, freezing out state Rep. Mike Miller (who's raised nearly as much money as Sturgill) as well as Vennia Francois and Judson Sapp. As on the FEC December 31 reporting deadline Democrat Stephanie Murphy had raised $1,342,343, while Stroll had brought in $308,456 and Miller $213,011. In his kick-off statement, Miller, generally considered a far right loon, said "This district should no longer be represented by someone whose vote is controlled by Nancy Pelosi and the ultra-left." Odd thing to say about one of the most conservative Blue Dog Dems in Congress? Not at all... if you live in Republican fantasy-land.

In fact, yesterday, I got the same kind of malarky from Sturgill's campaign:

Hey, Howard--

I appreciate you taking a minute to read my email. I wanted to ask you… do you know Scott Sturgill?



Scott’s a true conservative champion running for Congress in Florida, and he could really use your help.

His opponent, Stephanie Murphy, is about as liberal as it gets: she supports Obamacare, sanctuary cities, and-- this is the worst part for me-- abortion after the unborn child is more than twenty (20) weeks old and can feel pain.



 The good news is that even with her liberal pal Hillary Clinton on the ballot driving up Democrat turnout in Florida, Murphy was only able to eek out a win with 51.5% of the vote. This year, if conservatives like you and me stand up and make our voices heard, we can send her packing and put a true conservative like Scott in that seat.



 Click here to let me know if I can count on you to help Scott defeat liberal Stephanie Murphy and secure our Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

I’m proud to call Scott Sturgill a friend, and I know he’ll make a fantastic congressman. Unlike Stephanie Murphy, he takes a strong stand against wasteful spending and demands that politicians must adhere to the same rules as everyone else. He’s not a career politician, and he’s only going to Congress because he’s sick and tired of feeling sick and tired-- and at some point you’ve got to stand up and fix it yourself.



 This election is winnable-- but we can’t do it alone. We need your help, Howard. Add your name and let Scott & I know we can count on your support when it counts.



Thanks so much for everything. I hope you’re doing well.



-- Ian

These are some very conventional Republican talking points that they send to their moron followers everywhere in the country. And they underscores something that many establishment Democrats simply do not understand. The GOP will unleash their trip against any Democrat no matter how they actually vote. They’re going to say the same things about you, regardless. Stephanie Murphy, like I said, is about as right-wing as a Democrat can be. ProgressivePunch rates her a solid "F," not even close. Her lifetime crucial vote score is an abysmal 41.38, the worst of any Florida Democrat. In fact, the only Democrats who vote against progressive proposals more frequently than her are Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Henry Cuellar (TX) and Collin Peterson (MN). When Ryan and McCarthy want to call one of their horrifying bills "bipartisan," they go right to Stephanie Murphy. That's not going to help her with the Koch brothers-financed attack machine goes into action. It may help her-- and eventually it will for sure-- turning off base Democratic voters, once they figure out how she votes. (She's far worse than Lipinski, for example, who is bering primaried right now, and has a lifetime crucial vote score of 57.43.

Another clueless Blue Dog from the area, former Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas, represented chunks of what is now district. She fretted over every vote, trying not to give the Republicans anything that they could use against her, and then they ran $2 million of ads against her for destroying Medicare. She never saw it coming. And she lost her seat to crackpot teabagger Sandy Adams. Republicans though she was a Pelosi-clone liberal and were willing to vote for the crazy teabagger instead of the conservative Democrat. And progressives in the 2010 midterm election just stayed away from the polls, saying too themselves, "why should I vote for this drunken Republican-lite turd?" (Yeah, she was all that). And she lost-- in a 60-40% landslide-- to a silly extremist, who held the seat for one term, just as Kosmas had.

The DCCC wastes its time recruiting these Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party and they waste their money supporting them. They kill momentum for the kind of legislation that would make the Democratic Party popular (instead of--barely-- the lesser of two evils) and if they're in swing districts they lose anyway, once voters figure out how terrible they are.